Factors Affecting Religiosity

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Key trends

More women than men participate in religious activities and believe in God, sin, evil, the Devil and life after death

Miller and Hoffman - women express greater interest in religion, have a stronger personal commitment to it and attend church more

Bruce estimates that twice as many women as men involved in sects

Key trends

Brierly - those over 65 are the most likely to attend church

Lowest level of participation in religious activities is among people aged 15-19

High rate of participation among children under 15

Young adults are more likely to join sects

Middle-aged, middle-class people are more likely to join cults

Ruckbie - women in their 30s and 40s are most likely to participate in witchcraft

Davie - people aged 15-34 are less likely than those over 54 to believe in God and heaven

Overall decline in church attendance across all age groups in the past 30 years especially among under 15s

Older People and Religion

Disengagement - They become detached from the integrating mechanisms of society e.g. paid employment. Growing privatisation and social isolation from partners and friends dying. Religious organisations provide social support and a network of people to relate to.

Religious socialisation - Greater emphasis on religion through education and socialisation when younger.

Ill-health and death - Declining health and death looming and these are things that religion concerns itself with. Old people use religion for comfort, coping, meaning and support.

Young People and Religion

Declining attraction of religion - young people reject the values traditional religions promote e.g. no femal priests, no sex before marriage, homosexuality being wrong and abortion.

Expanded spiritual market place - Lynch says that young people may be turning away from traditional religions because they are more exposed to a wide diversity of religions through immigration, internet and mass media.

Privatisation of belief - Young people are more likely to treat religious belief as a private matter. According to Davie, young people 'believe but not belong'.

Secular spirituality and the sacred - Lynch claims that young people may not have lost religiosity but found new, secular and non-religious ways to express it e.g. they find football, clubbing, music and the environment 'sacred' in their lives.

Decline of metanarritives - Lyotard states that young people no longer believe the old religious explanations and they can pick and mix or reject beliefs as they choose.

Declining religious education - Bruce identifies this as a reason because of the decline in Sunday schools and school assemblies taking on a more secular tone.

Pragmatic reasons - Young people have more demands on their time (exam pressures, etc.) so they tend to use their free time for leisure pursuits e.g. shops, pubs and clubs as opposed to religion.

Women and Religion

Socialisation - Miller and Hoffman state that women are socialised to be more passive, obedient and caring, qualities which are valued by most religions

Guardians of family life - Halman and Draulans claims that women take charge of their children's moral development by introducing them to approved social values, including religious beliefs

Greater life expectancy - Women are more likely to be widowed so they turn to religion as a source of comfort and as a means of building support networks in their communities.

Status frustration - Religious participation may help to overcome or compensate for status frustration resulting from being confined to the home.

Closer proximity to birth and death - According to Davie, women are closer to 'ultimate' questions about the meaning of life that religion is concerned with through child-bearing and caring for elderly.

Social deprivation, marginality and theodicies of disprivelige - Glock and Stark and Stark and Bainbridge say that women are more likely to experience these so they join sects.

Key trends

Men and women interested in new age therapies more likely to be middle class

Men more likely to be younger, women, mainly middle-aged

Key Trends

Higher than average rates of religious

participation for most minority ethnic groups

Muslims, Hindus and black Christians are

considerably more likely that white Christians to see religion as important

Ethnicity and Religion

Cultural defence

Bruce

– religion offers support in a hostile environment

Bird

– religion among minorities can be a basis for community solidarity, a means of

preserving one’s culture and language and a way of coping with oppression in a

racist society

African and Caribbean Christians found that

white churches in the UK did not actively welcome them so they turned to

funding or joining black-led churches, especially Pentecostal churches

Cultural transition

Herberg

– religion is a means of easing transition into a new culture by providing

support and a sense of community for minority groups in their new environment

E.g.

high levels of religious participation among first generation migrants in the

USA

However,

once a group has made the transition into wider society, religion may lose its

role and decline in importance

Family pressures

Family

structures are much tighter knit in Asian communities, with strong extended

families

Combined

with generally closer-knit communities may result in pressure to conform to

religious values and behaviour

However

this ignores other ethnic minorities which do not necessarily have these values

Social identity

Religion

provides ethnic minority individuals with markers of identity e.g. customs,

dress food, rituals and festivals

Allows

members to resist the denial of status and the devaluing of their own culture

by racism

E.g.

Johal suggests that younger British Asians forged a single new hybrid identity

which he calls “Brasian” by blending both British and Asian cultures

Community identity and

cohesion

Davie

– higher levels of religiosity help to maintain tradition, group cohesion and

community solidarity

E.g.

Mosques and Sikh temples are community centres as well as places of worship,

and provide a focus for social life as well as a means of protecting and

promoting cultural values and traditions which may be under threat by the

dominant white culture

Modood

et al – religion is a source of socialization, means of maintaining traditional

morality and helps them to cope with the worries and pressures in life arising

from hostility and discrimination

Social deprivation,

marginality and status frustration

Marx

– religion is the ‘opium of the people’ – comforting diversion from attacking

the causes of their povery

Weber

– religion provides a ‘theodicy of disprivelige’

Stark

and Bainbridge – religion is a compensator

Gender and Religiosity

Age and Religiosity

Class and Religiosity

Ethnicity and Religiosity