Religion, Education and Medicine

Please read chapter 11/12 before answering the questions-thank you!!!

We are going to look at Religion, Education and Medicine in the following chapters. Sociologists would consider religion a socially shared organized way of thinking, feeling and acting according to one’s idea of existence. Religion can be rituals or relationship. A global view of religion is worship of good over evil. Some religious organizations that we have adapted are churches, denominations, sects and cults.

Sociologists see the Functionist viewing religions as some sort of social change and helping in times of uncertainty. The Conflict perspective views religion as difficult to maintain the staus quo-in other words, how do we continue to follow the rules established by the religious organization.

In Education, we would look at the difference between learning and education. Learning is a permanent change in behavior, whereas education is training in an institution. The effectiveness of schools is pretty important. California tends to get a bad wrap on education and in some ways we can do better in the classroom helping children and in other ways-we do a pretty good job! Especially our elementary school teachers:)

The climate in the classroom is one of the most important perspectives I believe-how the instructor makes you feel in the room. Either positive and supportive or demeaning and negative. The care, compassion and concern from the teacher should be evident.

The Functionalist says that schooling helps with social integration and socialization. The Conflict perspective says that only certain kids receive the help they need. The Symbolic Interactionist theorist might look at the communication in the classroom and the way the student represents education.

Lastly, we will look at Medicine. This is pretty applicable especially right now! The US explanation of medicine is that it is responsible for heath and disease. The US has an expectation of cure-we use risky procedures, expensive methods, and have invasive surgeries. The US is a disease-cure system.

We would look at the relationship between doctor and patient and how medicine is distributed to each individual. The controversy has been the rising health care costs for patients to receive the assistance that they need.

The Functionalist says that we play a “sick role” to be exempt from activites and behaviors performed. This is like an excused-day. The Conflict perspective says that the better the social class, the better the health care (discrimination). The Symbolic Interactionist views “sickness” as a condition that we attach meaning to. We would study this as the medicalization of deviance.

Insights: When looking at Medicine and the virus we as a world are dealing with, how can we help those in the medical profession right now if you agree that they are overwhelmed, overworked, and desperately looking for a cure?

Self: Without naming any names, give one an example of a teacher you might have struggled with growing up (or witnessed another student struggling with) and one example of a teacher you think did an excellent job. What did the first teacher do poorly and what did the second teacher do correct in your opinion?

please read chapter 11 and 12 from sociology the core eleventh edition by michael hughes and carloyn kroehler