Month: March 2017

1. I learned about how unchurched spirituality is becoming a bigger phenomenon as more and more people have moved away from the idea that religion must take place inside a place of worship, and how its importance has even dropped due to secularisation
2. I think the main area learned today was about the decline in the impact of religion, and evidence to suggest this is the idea of karl marx that people liked the idea of religion as a means of getting on through life as he stated god was a “man-made creation”
3. I wasn’t 100% of the idea of spirituality, and as a result I feel as if this is an area that I can research and develop further to gain a better understanding of what the importance of spirituality
4. I feel like my knowledge of the decrease in the overall impact of religion as time has went on has gotten better as I began to understand how the impact of secularisation has improved, but as stated above I will look further into spirituality as I feel as if it was an area that I did not understand as well as other parts
5. One thing I feel that I can take from this in how it impacts society and lifestyles, is that if someone choses to be religious, then we should respect their beliefs and views on that matter, but it is not compulsory to feel the need to be religious should we not want to be
6. I wish to develop my knowledge of spirituality and of the theorists more, so I will continue to research them further and gather a greater understanding of what they did and the impacts it has on society

• I leaned that “religion” is much more than just someone’s beliefs and how important its influences can be in many modern day aspects of life and society
• I feel like I learned a lot about how many different theorists interpret the ideas and beliefs that exist and how they differ so dramatically from each other. For example Durkheim believes that there is something real in religion whereas Malinowski believes that religion was an institution that fulfils people’s psychological needs.
• I was not sure about the question that we had to discuss within the tutorial groups, as I struggled to connect the theorists and the questions together whilst also providing relevant examples. I could improve upon this by reading over the theorists’ arguments and drawing connections to the questions being asked.
• My knowledge of how religion is viewed in many different ways was improved today from a sociological stance as seeing theorists views on the matter allowed me to open up my mind more. I feel as if I can still improve on making stronger connections between the theorists and the questions and can do this by researching the theories further so that I gain a better understanding of what is being asked of me.
• It allowed me to see how having different religious beliefs may differ depending on the environment in which they are influencing eg the work place and the holidays of certain religions and how that would affect work schedules. That even though some children have different religious beliefs from others it should not make them any different in the same opportunities that are available to them in society today.
• I would like to try and develop my understanding of the theories we spoke about and the impact that they bring upon the way in which we look at religion in society today. I will continue to read up on the theorists and try and relate their views in comparison to the beliefs and views I see in modern society.

In todays lecture, we discusessed the links and relationship between society, culture and youth. I found out that culture is he values, norms habits, and ways of life characteristics of a coherent social group. Furthermore, I found that the meaning of a society is made up of people, groups, networks, institutions, organisations and systems. These may include local, national and international patterns of relationships. We then discussed how they interact on a micro, meso and macro level. We then discussed how youth is different to adults and mentioned a few characteristics that they both have. For example, youth tend to be ignorant, rebellious and dependant whereas adults tend to be more independent and strong. Youth is the stage between being a child and an adult and within this there is subcultures. For example, goths. punks and hippies.
We then went onto studying some social theorists such as Piaget, Kohlberg, and Maslow and Eric Erikson. Piaget believes that we go through stages in our life in relation to what age we are and this impacts our mental development. We then had a look at Erikson who doesn’t believe in stages but believes in stages but believes that youth climb steps in order to become an adult.
During the day I struggled to understand Maslow as much as the other theorists. I feel that I understood the main idea of the triangle but do not feel confident enough to write about him and his beliefs in more detail. In preparation for the exam I will research him further.
From todays lecture I feel confident that I could attempt a question about youth, society and culture however I feel that to have a greater understanding I need to have a look at some case studies and further research theorists.