Today has been a massive improvement compared to last week’s lecture, tutorial and independent task. I think that this was impacted by my increase in enthusiasm this week. I enjoyed today’s lecture a lot more because I understood the majority of what I was being taught straight away. I also believe the lecturer used very good examples and short video clips in explaining certain points. For example, when learning about the impacts that religion and culture has, we looked at the impact that it has on health. The lecturer then proceeded to give an example of a Jehovah’s witness, who would not accept a blood transfusion on religious grounds because it is in conflict with their religious beliefs. The lecturer also showed us a video clip on this to put this into perspective which is very useful to look back on for future reference.
We also learned about Max Weber and Karl Marx who were and still are very famous sociologists. Their views are the complete opposite of one another which I found very interesting. In the tutorial I was asked a question about Weber, how he appraised religion as culture and the importance in society. I really struggled with this question because I didn’t understand what major impacts there were in the world. I think this was because I personally believe that Marx’s view is something I would believe over Weber’s view. Although I struggled, I was able to answer because we were in groups and I could ask people questions. I will have to work on this particular topic to become less hazy on the subject.
In the independent study task I picked to write about secularization, a secular society and determining what the term ‘de-christianisation’ meant. I thought that it was a good idea to look at questions that may be similar to exam questions. I thought that the independent task could possibly have been whittled down to half an hour because I felt after a while I was repeating myself. I also think this task could have been done at home so we could have the choice, whether to do the independent task straight away or have a break to rest.
Overall, I can definitely say that I enjoyed this weeks input a lot more than last week’s and I am really looking forward to learning about the new topic Inclusion next week.
