Chapter 14: Education and Religion

    
     Two of the most important factors to modern society are education and religion. Education consists of the roles and norms that ensure the transmission of knowledge, values, and patterns of behavior from one generation to the next, this is the reason why education is fundamental for every society, without education, no society would be able to succeed. Religion is a system of roles and norms that is organized around the sacred world and that binds people together in social groups. Religion, just as education, is also a keystone to society, religion makes people of all different kinds equal, unites people with the same beliefs and makes them closer together. Both education and religion are essential for every society to be successful for a long time.


  Education was created in order to be able to teach new generations the building blocks of the society they live in, to teach them the rules, norms, how to behave, and all other essential matters that will facilitate social control in the future. Kids, just like adults, get educated every day, either by a formal or informal education. There are two kinds of education, formal and informal. Formal education, which involves instruction by specially trained teacher who follow officially recognized policies, is called schooling.Informal education is the one that we get from the people around us and/or our parents. This type of education is mainly on how we should behave within society, and about the norms of our local community. There are many problems to a formal education institution according to conflict sociologists. Sociologists use the term hidden curriculum to describe schools’ transmissions of cultural goals that are not openly acknowledged. Formal education institutions, according to conflict sociologists, also promote inequality by tracking, tracking involves the assignment of students of different types of educational programs, such as general studies, vocational training, and college-preparatory studies. There are some alternatives to education too. Charter schools receive a character of operation from the state and is basically managed by the state, but is ran as if it were a private institution. In this kind of institution, parents have school choice, the amount of money they want the state to spend on them. Another solution is homeschooling, a system in which a child’s main education is undertaken by parents at home. Most schools have also adapted zero tolerance policies. These involves set punishments, even expulsion, for serious offenses such as carrying a weapon, committing a violent act, or possessing drugs or alcohol. A new system in American schools that has derived lately is bilingual education were the children learns two languages at school, including English. In religion, sacred things are very important. Sacred is anything that is considered to be part of the supernatural world and inspires awe, respect and reverence, the opposite of profane, which is anything considered to be part of the ordinary world and thus, commonplace and familiar. Many times being part of a religion involves practicing a certain ritual; a ritual may be defined as an established pattern of behavior through which a group of believers experiences the sacred.

.

  There are three main types of religions. The first one is animism. Animism is a belief that spirits actively influence human life. Examples of religions included in this category are, shamanism, where it is believed that spirits communicate only with one person in the group, called shaman, and totemism, which involves a believe in kinship between humans and animals or natural objects. The second kind of religion is theism, the belief in a god or gods. Two derivations from theism are monotheism, which involves only believing in one god, and polytheism, which involves believing in more than one god. The third kind of religion is ethicalism, which is based on the idea that moral principles have a sacred quality.Religion is divided into a couple organizational structures. An ecclesia is a type of religious organization in which most people in the society are members by virtue of their birth. A denomination is a well-established religious organization in which a substantial number of the population are members. A sect is a relatively small religious organization that typically has split off from a denomination differences concerning beliefs. Finally a cult is a new religion whose beliefs and practices differ markedly from those of the society’s major religions.

   Religion and education share the same objective, to promote social control, yet, time has shown how both have had different correlations as to the importance society gives to each. Education used to be a minor detail in a kids daily life, with the years education has become more and more important, today parents give great importance to the quality level of the education their child is receiving. 

                      Different religions in USA.

Meanwhile, religion has been on a constant decrease. American society is becoming more secular, religion is losing its influence in everyday life in the United States. Even though it is hard to measure religiosity, the depth of people’s religious feelings, statistics show that religion’s influence on American life is in constant decline.