Week 13 · Chapter

Chapter 13 — Social Institutions: Education & Religion

Introduction to Sociology Free sample edition

The module's primary reading · ~35–45 minutes · Objective 7 (explain the major social institutions — family, education, religion, the economy and work, and government and politics — through the functionalist, conflict, and interactionist perspectives, including Weber's types of authority and the pluralist and power-elite models), building on Objective 3 (analyze culture and socialization — values, beliefs, norms, symbols, and language; ethnocentrism and cultural relativism; the agents of socialization; and the social development of the self in Cooley's and Mead's accounts) and Objective 2 (describe and evaluate the major sociological research methods (surveys, experiments, field research and ethnography, secondary-data analysis), distinguish reliability from validity and a population from a sample, and read a social statistic critically — what it measures, over what population and period, what it shows and does not, and whether it is a correlation or a cause) · Read it first this week; the lecture, the slide deck, the tutorial, the quiz, and the Sociology in Action Workshop all build on it.

In plain language

Most of us spent more than a decade in school, and many people belong to a faith or grew up around one. This week treats both as institutions (lasting, organized arrangements a society builds to meet shared needs). You will ask what schools do besides teach, including the lessons nobody writes down. You will see how advantage can travel through a school from parents to children. Then you will meet three classic ways of reading religion (a shared system of beliefs and practices about sacred things), sort religious groups into types, and read a real survey of religious identity, step by step.

Why you already care about this

In its Religious Landscape Study of 2023–24, Pew Research Center found that 29% of U.S. adults described themselves as religiously unaffiliated. In 2007 the same study found 16%. The Christian share moved the other way, from 78% to 62%, from the answers of 36,908 respondents in the newest round.

Those figures touch rooms you know. Think of a lunch table where you met a friend who still texts you. Think of a teacher who seemed to expect great things from one student and very little from another. Think of a job posting that asked for a degree for work a short course could teach. Think of a holiday table where one relative prays before the meal, one checks a phone, and one says they are "nothing in particular."

None of these moments feels like sociology to you at the time. Each one is a place where two of society's biggest institutions reach into your life. This chapter gives you the words for those moments and the habits to read the numbers behind them carefully.

By the end of this chapter you will be able to:

sort an effect of schooling as a manifest or a latent function;
explain the hidden curriculum, tracking, and credentialism as conflict critiques, and say what each does not claim;
explain cultural capital and the correspondence principle as two routes of social reproduction;
describe the self-fulfilling prophecy in a classroom and say why the classic study is taught in words;
place Durkheim, Weber, and Marx with their ideas about religion, with Marx's opium line correctly attributed;
sort an illustrative religious group as an ecclesia, a denomination, a sect, or a new religious movement;
read the Religious Landscape Study figures four ways, with the arithmetic shown, and say what the "nones" figure does not measure.

Carry this line with you: a "none" is not an atheist; affiliation is not belief.

Where we are

Already covered: Week 1 gave you the three perspectives and named Durkheim, Marx, and Weber. Week 2 taught the four data questions and the percentage point. Week 4 named school and religion as agents of socialization and introduced the hidden curriculum. Week 5 gave you the Thomas theorem. Week 8 added the level-of-analysis habit and the ecological fallacy, and Week 12 called the family a social institution.
This week: two more institutions, education and religion: what schools do, how they pass advantage along, how an expectation can come true, three classic readings of religion, four types of religious group, and a real survey of religious identity.
How they connect: Week 12 read one institution through the three lenses; this week runs the same lenses over two more, and reads the religion figures with Week 2's four questions.
Where we're going next: Week 14, Social Institutions: Economy, Work & Politics, turns the same lenses on work, power, and the state.

Week 12 is the chapter this one leans on most. There you met the social institution, a lasting, organized arrangement that a society builds to meet shared needs, such as the family, schooling, religion, the economy, or government. Week 4 named school and religion as two agents of socialization, the people, groups, and institutions that teach a culture. This week those agents get a full chapter of their own.

1. Ask what school is for: manifest and latent functions

Think back to one ordinary school day. A bell rang, you sat through algebra, and at lunch you sat with the same three friends you sat with all year. While you were there, a parent was at work, knowing where you were until the last bell.

Education is the social institution that passes knowledge, skills, and values from one generation to the next, mostly through schools.

Structural functionalism (macro) asks what jobs an institution does for a society, including your school. It gives you two kinds of job.

A manifest function is an intended and openly recognized consequence of a social pattern or institution, such as a school's teaching of reading and arithmetic.
A latent function is an unintended and often unnoticed consequence of a social pattern or institution, such as the childcare and friendship networks that schools provide.

Schooling's manifest functions are transmitting knowledge and values and sorting students toward later roles. Its latent functions include childcare during the working day and the friendship and dating networks that form in hallways.

Worked example — sorting five effects of an illustrative high school. For each effect, ask one question: did the school set out to do this?

Students learn to solve equations. Yes, that is the stated purpose: a manifest function.
Grades and course levels point students toward different next steps. Yes, sorting is a stated job: a manifest function.
Parents can work full shifts because their children are in class. No one wrote that into a lesson plan: a latent function.
Two students from different neighborhoods become close friends in the band room. Not a goal of the band class: a latent function.
Students learn shared civic values in a history class. Yes, passing on values is a stated purpose: a manifest function.

In words: three of the five effects are manifest and two are latent, and the test was intention, not importance.

Misconception check — "latent means bad." Students often think a latent function is a harmful side effect. It is tempting, because "hidden" sounds sneaky. But latent only means unintended and often unnoticed. Childcare and friendships are latent and helpful. The cure: ask "was it intended?", not "was it good?"

Memory hook: ask whether it was planned, not whether it helped.

2. Read the lessons nobody wrote down: the conflict critiques

Picture a first-grade classroom on its first morning. Children learn to line up, raise a hand, wait for permission, and stop talking when the teacher lifts a hand. None of that is on the reading list. Yet by spring every child knows it.

Conflict theory (macro) asks you a different question from functionalism: whom does the school serve, and who gains from the way it sorts? Three ideas carry that critique.

The first you met in Week 4. The hidden curriculum is the unwritten lessons about obedience, punctuality, and hierarchy that a school teaches alongside its official subjects. In the conflict reading, those lessons teach students to accept their place in a ranked order.

The second is about sorting.

Tracking is the practice of sorting students into separate ability or program groups, which the conflict view examines for who lands in which group and where each group leads.

The third is about the papers that schools hand out.

Credentialism is the reliance on degrees and certificates as stand-ins for skill when people are hired or promoted, an idea Randall Collins set out in The Credential Society (1979).

Worked example — an illustrative job posting. A warehouse posts an opening for an inventory clerk. The posting asks for a bachelor's degree. The daily tasks are counting stock, using a scanner, and entering numbers into a spreadsheet, skills a short training course teaches.

What is the credential standing in for? Probably reliability, reading, and basic computer skill.
Who is screened out? Every applicant with the skill but without the degree.
Who gains? Applicants whose families could pay for a degree, whatever the job requires.

In words: the degree is working as a gatekeeper here, and the conflict view asks whether the gate measures the job or the applicant's background.

Misconception check — "the hidden curriculum is a secret syllabus." You may picture a document someone is hiding. It is tempting, because "hidden" sounds like a cover-up. But the hidden curriculum is not written anywhere. It is the set of unwritten lessons about behavior and hierarchy that routines teach. The cure: look for what the bells, lines, and rules teach, not for a hidden file.

Misconception check — "credentialism says credentials are worthless." Students often hear the critique as "degrees don't matter." Collins's point is narrower. Credentials do matter, often a great deal, and that is the problem he names: they can stand in for skill they do not measure. The cure: ask what a credential is standing in for.

Memory hook: the bell teaches, too.

3. Follow advantage through the school door: social reproduction

Picture two illustrative first graders on the first day of school. One has been read to every night, has visited a museum, and talks to adults the way teachers expect. The other has spent evenings helping care for younger siblings and knows a great deal that school does not ask about. Both are bright. The school rewards the first child's knowledge more quickly.

Social reproduction is the process by which a society's structure of advantage and disadvantage is passed from one generation to the next, with schools as one of its routes.

Two conflict accounts explain how a school can carry advantage forward.

Cultural capital is Pierre Bourdieu's term for the knowledge, tastes, and ways of speaking that pay off in institutions such as schools.

Bourdieu (1986), "The Forms of Capital", argued that this kind of capital works like money: families pass it down, and schools reward it as if it were pure talent.

The correspondence principle is Bowles and Gintis's 1976 argument that the way schools are organized, with their bells, rules, and ranks, mirrors the way workplaces are organized, so schooling prepares students for their places at work.

Worked example — one school rule, two accounts. An illustrative middle school marks students down for turning in work late, and praises quiet, orderly classrooms.

Correspondence principle (Bowles and Gintis, 1976): the rule mirrors a workplace where deadlines are fixed and supervisors reward order, so it prepares students for jobs that ask them to follow instructions.
Cultural capital (Bourdieu): students who learned at home to plan around deadlines and speak in the school's style meet the rule more easily, so the school rewards a home advantage.
Structural functionalism (macro): the same rule teaches a useful habit every student will need, which is the functionalist reading of a manifest function.

In words: one rule supports two conflict accounts and one functionalist account, and the course gives no verdict; the evidence on a real school is where you weigh them.

Misconception check — "social reproduction means individual effort does not matter." You may hear the conflict accounts as saying no one can rise through school. They say something narrower: that schools tend to pass advantage along, so a pattern across many students has a structural explanation. Individual effort and structural patterns work at different levels. The cure: name the level, as Week 8 taught.

Pause and choose one of these two prompts.

(a) Name one thing you learned at home that school rewarded, and explain whether it fits Bourdieu's idea of cultural capital.
(b) Name one school routine you remember and explain how the correspondence principle and a functionalist reading would each describe it.

Memory hook: some lessons arrive at school already learned.

4. Watch an expectation come true: the self-fulfilling prophecy

Picture a soccer coach who is told that one new player is "a natural." The coach passes that player the ball more, gives more feedback, and lets the player take the penalty kicks. By season's end, the player has improved more than anyone. Was the player a natural, or did the coach's belief help build one?

Symbolic interactionism (micro) looks for answers like that one inside everyday interaction. In Week 5 you met the Thomas theorem: when people define a situation as real, it becomes real in its consequences. The classroom version has its own name.

A self-fulfilling prophecy is an expectation that brings about the very outcome it predicts, because people act on the expectation as if it were already true.
The teacher-expectancy effect is the proposed effect of a teacher's expectations on how well a student does, the classroom form of a self-fulfilling prophecy whose size and reach are still debated.

The classic study is Rosenthal and Jacobson (1968), Pygmalion in the Classroom. They reported that elementary pupils whom teachers had been told were about to "bloom" gained more on a later test than their classmates. That made it the best-known demonstration of a teacher-expectancy effect.

Honesty note. How large and how general the effect is has been debated, and later studies only partly reproduced it. That is why this course teaches the study in words, as the origin of the idea in schools, and never asks you for its point gains.

Worked example — tracing a prophecy in an illustrative classroom. A teacher reads a note that one student "struggles with math."

The expectation: the teacher believes the student will struggle.
The action: the teacher calls on the student less and gives easier problems.
The response: the student gets less practice and less feedback, and starts to believe the label.
The outcome: the student's scores fall behind, which seems to confirm the note.

In words: the expectation shaped the interaction, and the interaction produced the outcome it predicted.

Misconception check — "Pygmalion proved that expectations decide grades." Students often treat the 1968 study as a settled law. It is tempting, because the story is memorable. But the effect has been debated and only partly reproduced. The cure: say "a classic study that introduced the idea, and whose effect is debated."

Memory hook: a label can write its own ending.

5. Define religion as a sociologist does: sacred and profane

Think of a team jersey framed on a wall, never worn, never washed. Or a family recipe card kept in a drawer and taken out only once a year. Neither is religious. Yet each is set apart from ordinary things and handled with care.

You already know that difference from your own life. Durkheim built his study of religion on it.

Religion is a shared system of beliefs and practices about sacred things that binds the people who hold them into a moral community.
The sacred is, in Durkheim's account, whatever a group sets apart from ordinary life and treats with awe and reverence, such as an object, a place, or a ritual.
The profane is, in Durkheim's account, the ordinary, everyday world of routine things and activities that are not set apart as sacred.

Durkheim (1912), The Elementary Forms of Religious Life, read religion as a source of social cohesion. Shared rituals gather people, remind them what they hold in common, and bind them into one moral community.

Worked example — sorting four illustrative items in one community. Ask: does the group set this apart and treat it with awe?

A book read aloud only during services and stored on a special stand: sacred.
The folding chairs set out in the same hall for a bake sale: profane.
A candle lit once a year at a remembrance ritual: sacred.
The hall's parking lot: profane.

In words: the same building holds both, and what makes something sacred is how a group treats it.

Misconception check — "Durkheim argued that religion is true" or "that it is false." You may read Durkheim as a believer or a skeptic. It is tempting, because he wrote about religion at length. But Durkheim studied what religion does for a group, its social function, not whether any religion is true. The cure: ask "what does it do for the group?", not "is it true?"

Memory hook: sacred is set apart; profane is everyday.

6. Hear three classic voices on religion

Picture an illustrative small town on a holiday morning. Families walk to services. Shops are closed. Some residents find comfort there after a hard year, and some wonder why the town's wealthiest families sit in the front rows. Three classic voices would read that morning three ways.

Durkheim: cohesion. Structural functionalism (macro), with Durkheim, reads religion as cohesion. Shared rituals bind a group into one moral community.

Weber: an affinity of ideas. Max Weber (1904–1905), The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism, argued that ideas can shape economic life.

The Protestant ethic is Max Weber's name for an ethic of disciplined work in certain Protestant traditions, which he argued had an affinity with the spirit of modern capitalism.
An elective affinity is Weber's phrase for a fit between two sets of ideas or ways of life that draw on and strengthen each other, a weaker claim than saying one caused the other.

Marx: a comfort that keeps things in place. Conflict theory (macro), with Marx, reads religion as a comfort that eases suffering and so helps keep inequality in place. Marx's line calling religion the opium of the people comes from his introduction to A Contribution to the Critique of Hegel's Philosophy of Right (1844). The line is his, not Weber's or Durkheim's.

Symbolic interactionism (micro) adds a fourth angle: what a ritual, a symbol, or a sacred object means to the people who share it.

Worked example — the holiday morning, read through the three perspectives. Run the same morning through each lens in order.

Structural functionalism (macro): the shared service gathers the town and renews its common values, Durkheim's cohesion.
Conflict theory (macro): the comfort of the service may soften anger at the town's inequalities, and the front rows show who holds standing, Marx's reading.
Symbolic interactionism (micro): the meaning of lighting a candle differs for a grieving widow, a visiting grandchild, and a teenager attending for the first time.

In words: one morning supports three readings at two levels. No lens is declared correct.

Misconception check — "Weber said Protestantism caused capitalism." You may compress Weber into a one-line cause. It is tempting, because the book's title pairs the two. But Weber argued an elective affinity between an ethic and a spirit, a fit, not a one-way cause. The cure: say "affinity," not "caused."

Misconception check — "the opium line is Weber's" or "Durkheim's." Students often credit the line to whichever theorist they read most recently. It belongs to Marx, from 1844. The cure: pair it with conflict theory, and conflict theory with Marx.

Pause and choose one of these two prompts.

(a) Think of a ritual you have taken part in, religious or not, and describe what Durkheim would say it does for the group.
(b) Pick Weber's or Marx's reading of religion and write the strongest case for it in two sentences, then the strongest critique in two sentences.

Memory hook: cohesion, affinity, comfort: Durkheim, Weber, Marx.

7. Sort the religious organizations: four types

Picture an illustrative country with one official church, several large churches that live side by side, a breakaway group in one valley, and a brand-new movement meeting in a rented studio. Sociologists sort groups like these with a four-part model. These types are a classroom model, a simplification you can hold in one hand, not a description of every real group.

An ecclesia is a religious organization tied to the state that counts nearly everyone in a society as a member.
A denomination is a large, well-established religious organization that accepts the wider society and lives alongside other faiths without claiming to be the only true one.
A sect is a smaller religious group that has broken away from a larger body and sets itself apart from the wider society, usually with stricter demands on its members.
A new religious movement is a newly formed religious group whose beliefs and practices sit outside a society's established traditions; sociologists use this name in place of the older word cult, which carries an insult.

Worked example — sorting four illustrative groups. Ask three questions of each group: is it tied to the state, did it break away from a larger body, and is it new and outside the established traditions?

A church that the country's law names as the official religion, which counts almost every citizen as a member: tied to the state, so an ecclesia.
A large church with congregations in every city, which works with other faiths on a food drive: no state tie, no break, and well established, so a denomination.
A congregation in an illustrative town that splits from a large church to follow stricter rules on dress and diet, and keeps apart from town life: a breakaway that sets itself apart, so a sect.
A group founded a few years ago around new teachings drawn from no existing tradition: new and outside the established traditions, so a new religious movement.

In words: the sort turns on the group's ties to the state, its relation to a larger body, and its novelty, not on its size alone.

Misconception check — "a sect is a small denomination." You may sort by size. It is tempting, because sects are often smaller. But the criterion is the group's relationship to the wider society and to the body it left, not its head count. A large group that keeps itself apart can still be a sect. The cure: ask "does it set itself apart?" before you ask "how big is it?"

Memory hook: ask about ties, breaks, and newness before size.

8. See religion leave and stay in public life: secularization and civil religion

Picture an illustrative city on a national day of remembrance. Fewer residents attend services than a generation ago. Yet at noon the flag outside city hall is lowered, a crowd falls silent, and a choir sings a song everyone seems to know. No church organized it, and it still feels solemn.

If you have stood in a crowd like that, two ideas name what you felt.

Secularization is the decline of religion's influence over a society's institutions, such as its schools, laws, and government, and over individual lives.
Civil religion is a set of shared beliefs, symbols, and rituals that give a nation's public life a sacred character apart from any one church, a term Bellah brought into sociology in 1967.

The two can hold at once. Formal religion can lose ground while a nation's public rituals keep a sacred tone. In Durkheim's terms, the lowered flag is set apart and treated with awe, so it works like the sacred.

Worked example — sorting three illustrative scenes. For each scene, ask whether religion is losing influence, whether public life is taking a sacred tone, or both.

A city moves its public-school calendar so that no religious holiday sets the school year: religion's influence over an institution shrinks, so secularization.
A crowd at a ballgame stands silent for a national anthem: shared symbols give public life a sacred tone, so civil religion.
A town council stops opening its meetings with a prayer and opens with a moment of silence instead: both at once, a step of secularization and a civil-religion ritual.

In words: secularization describes what religion loses in public life, and civil religion describes the sacred tone public life can keep.

Misconception check — "secularization means religion disappears." You may read the word as "religion is vanishing." It is tempting, because "decline" sounds final. But secularization names a decline in influence, and a decline can slow, stop, or coexist with civil religion. The cure: say "less influence over institutions," not "no religion."

Memory hook: less church in public life is not less sacred in public life.

9. Read the "nones" figure four ways

Now you read real figures with Week 2's four questions. First, you need the words a survey of religion depends on.

Religious affiliation is the religious identity a person reports when asked, such as Christian, another religion, or none, which is different from what the person believes or how often they attend services.
The religiously unaffiliated are people who report no religious identity when a survey asks about their religion; reporting no religious identity is not the same as reporting no belief.
Nones is an informal name for the religiously unaffiliated; most of them describe their religion as nothing in particular rather than as atheist.
A respondent is a person who answers a survey; the answers of the respondents in a sample are used to estimate figures for the whole population.

The figures come from Pew Research Center's Religious Landscape Study.

Shares of U.S. adults by self-reported religious identity, Pew Research Center Religious Landscape Study, 2007, 2014, and 2023–24, in percent
Religious identity	2007	2014	2023–24
Christian	78%	71%	62%
Religiously unaffiliated	16%	23%	29%

The same study puts adults who identify with other religions at 7% in 2023–24.

Worked example — the Religious Landscape Study, read four ways. Take the five steps in order.

What is measured? The share of U.S. adults who report their religious identity as Christian, as religiously unaffiliated, or as another religion; this is self-reported affiliation, not belief and not attendance.
Over whom? U.S. adults, estimated from 36,908 respondents to Pew Research Center's Religious Landscape Study, fielded from July 2023 to March 2024, compared with the study's 2007 and 2014 rounds.
What does it show? Work it one step at a time.
- The 2023–24 figures: 62% Christian, 29% religiously unaffiliated, and 7% other religions.
- The pinned shares, added: 62 + 29 + 7 = 98, so the three groups cover 98% of U.S. adults; this course pins no figure for the remaining 2 percentage points, so you read them at the source rather than guess.
- Christian share, step by step: 78% in 2007, 71% in 2014, 62% in 2023–24, so 78 − 71 = 7 percentage points lower and then 71 − 62 = 9 percentage points lower.
- Christian share, the whole change: 78 − 62 = 16 percentage points lower, and 16 ÷ 78 × 100 ≈ 20.5, so the share was about 20.5 percent smaller than in 2007.
- Unaffiliated share, step by step: 16% in 2007, 23% in 2014, 29% in 2023–24, so 23 − 16 = 7 percentage points higher and then 29 − 23 = 6 percentage points higher.
- Unaffiliated share, the whole change: 29 − 16 = 13 percentage points higher, and 13 ÷ 16 × 100 = 81.25, so the share was about 81 percent larger than in 2007.
- The ratio: in 2007 there were 78 ÷ 16 ≈ 4.9 Christian-identifying adults for every unaffiliated adult; in 2023–24 there were 62 ÷ 29 ≈ 2.1.
What does it not show? What anyone believes, how often anyone attends services, why the shares changed, or anything about one person you know; a group share applied to one person is the ecological fallacy.
Correlation or cause? Neither. You are reading descriptions of self-reported identity in three survey rounds, not a test of what causes people to leave or join a religion.

In words: between 2007 and 2023–24 the unaffiliated share of U.S. adults rose 13 percentage points. The ratio was about 4.9 to 1 in 2007 versus about 2.1 to 1 in 2023–24, less than half as wide.

Notice the two units. The unaffiliated share rose 13 percentage points, which is about 81 percent of its 2007 size. Both statements are true, and they answer different questions. Week 2's percentage point is the unit for the gap between two shares.

The study's own headline is that the decline in the Christian share has slowed and may have leveled off. That is a description of a trend. Three pinned survey points alone cannot show the shape of the curve between them, so the headline is read at its source, not rebuilt from this table.

In practice (your tools). In any free spreadsheet, type the three Christian shares, 78, 71, and 62, in A1 through A3, and the three unaffiliated shares, 16, 23, and 29, in B1 through B3. In C1, type =B3-B1 to get the change in percentage points, 13. In C2, type =(B3-B1)/B1*100 to get the percent change, 81.25. In C3, type =A1/B1 to get the 2007 ratio, about 4.9, and in C4, type =A3/B3 to get the 2023–24 ratio, about 2.1.

Misconception check — "the nones are atheists." You may read 29% unaffiliated as 29% who reject belief in God. It is tempting, because "no religion" sounds like "no belief." But affiliation is reported identity, and most of the unaffiliated describe themselves as "nothing in particular." The cure: say "reports no religious identity," never "does not believe."

Misconception check — "a 13-point rise means the share grew 13 percent." Students often swap the two units. A rise from 16% to 29% is 13 percentage points, and it is about 81 percent of the starting share. The cure: write the unit every time.

Caveat. A share describes U.S. adults as a group. It tells you nothing about the faith of any one neighbor, classmate, or coworker; reading it that way is the ecological fallacy from Week 8.

Memory hook: identity, not belief; points, not percent.

For more on these figures and on schools and religion, see this module's Readings & Resources page.

Key terms

Education — The social institution that passes knowledge, skills, and values from one generation to the next, mostly through schools. (first used: 1. Ask what school is for: manifest and latent functions)
Manifest function — An intended and openly recognized consequence of a social pattern or institution, such as a school's teaching of reading and arithmetic. (first used: 1. Ask what school is for: manifest and latent functions)
Latent function — An unintended and often unnoticed consequence of a social pattern or institution, such as the childcare and friendship networks that schools provide. (first used: 1. Ask what school is for: manifest and latent functions)
Tracking — The practice of sorting students into separate ability or program groups, which the conflict view examines for who lands in which group and where each group leads. (first used: 2. Read the lessons nobody wrote down: the conflict critiques)
Credentialism — The reliance on degrees and certificates as stand-ins for skill when people are hired or promoted, an idea Randall Collins set out in The Credential Society (1979). (first used: 2. Read the lessons nobody wrote down: the conflict critiques)
Social reproduction — The process by which a society's structure of advantage and disadvantage is passed from one generation to the next, with schools as one of its routes. (first used: 3. Follow advantage through the school door: social reproduction)
Cultural capital — Pierre Bourdieu's term for the knowledge, tastes, and ways of speaking that pay off in institutions such as schools. (first used: 3. Follow advantage through the school door: social reproduction)
Correspondence principle — Bowles and Gintis's 1976 argument that the way schools are organized, with their bells, rules, and ranks, mirrors the way workplaces are organized, so schooling prepares students for their places at work. (first used: 3. Follow advantage through the school door: social reproduction)
Self-fulfilling prophecy — An expectation that brings about the very outcome it predicts, because people act on the expectation as if it were already true. (first used: 4. Watch an expectation come true: the self-fulfilling prophecy)
Teacher-expectancy effect — The proposed effect of a teacher's expectations on how well a student does, the classroom form of a self-fulfilling prophecy whose size and reach are still debated. (first used: 4. Watch an expectation come true: the self-fulfilling prophecy)
Religion — A shared system of beliefs and practices about sacred things that binds the people who hold them into a moral community. (first used: 5. Define religion as a sociologist does: sacred and profane)
Sacred — In Durkheim's account, whatever a group sets apart from ordinary life and treats with awe and reverence, such as an object, a place, or a ritual. (first used: 5. Define religion as a sociologist does: sacred and profane)
Profane — In Durkheim's account, the ordinary, everyday world of routine things and activities that are not set apart as sacred. (first used: 5. Define religion as a sociologist does: sacred and profane)
Protestant ethic — Max Weber's name for an ethic of disciplined work in certain Protestant traditions, which he argued had an affinity with the spirit of modern capitalism. (first used: 6. Hear three classic voices on religion)
Elective affinity — Weber's phrase for a fit between two sets of ideas or ways of life that draw on and strengthen each other, a weaker claim than saying one caused the other. (first used: 6. Hear three classic voices on religion)
Ecclesia — A religious organization tied to the state that counts nearly everyone in a society as a member. (first used: 7. Sort the religious organizations: four types)
Denomination — A large, well-established religious organization that accepts the wider society and lives alongside other faiths without claiming to be the only true one. (first used: 7. Sort the religious organizations: four types)
Sect — A smaller religious group that has broken away from a larger body and sets itself apart from the wider society, usually with stricter demands on its members. (first used: 7. Sort the religious organizations: four types)
New religious movement — A newly formed religious group whose beliefs and practices sit outside a society's established traditions; sociologists use this name in place of the older word cult, which carries an insult. (first used: 7. Sort the religious organizations: four types)
Secularization — The decline of religion's influence over a society's institutions, such as its schools, laws, and government, and over individual lives. (first used: 8. See religion leave and stay in public life: secularization and civil religion)
Civil religion — A set of shared beliefs, symbols, and rituals that give a nation's public life a sacred character apart from any one church, a term Bellah brought into sociology in 1967. (first used: 8. See religion leave and stay in public life: secularization and civil religion)
Religious affiliation — The religious identity a person reports when asked, such as Christian, another religion, or none, which is different from what the person believes or how often they attend services. (first used: 9. Read the "nones" figure four ways)
Religiously unaffiliated — People who report no religious identity when a survey asks about their religion; reporting no religious identity is not the same as reporting no belief. (first used: 9. Read the "nones" figure four ways)
Nones — An informal name for the religiously unaffiliated; most of them describe their religion as nothing in particular rather than as atheist. (first used: 9. Read the "nones" figure four ways)
Respondent — A person who answers a survey; the answers of the respondents in a sample are used to estimate figures for the whole population. (first used: 9. Read the "nones" figure four ways)

Summary

Schooling's manifest functions are intended; its latent functions, such as childcare and friendships, are not.
The hidden curriculum, tracking, and credentialism are conflict critiques of how schools sort.
Cultural capital and the correspondence principle are two routes of social reproduction.
A self-fulfilling prophecy brings about what it predicts; the 1968 classroom study is debated.
Durkheim set the sacred against the profane and read religion as cohesion, not as true or false.
Weber argued an elective affinity, not a one-way cause; the opium line is Marx's.
Ecclesia, denomination, sect, and new religious movement are a model, sorted by ties, breaks, and newness.
Secularization is a decline in influence; civil religion gives public life a sacred tone.
In 2023–24, 29% of U.S. adults reported no religious identity, up 13 percentage points from 2007.

Check your understanding

Work these before looking at the answers — they are ungraded, and the answers (with reasoning) are at the bottom of the page.

An illustrative after-school robotics club is set up to teach engineering. Its members also end up carpooling, and several parents become friends at competitions. Sort each effect as manifest or latent.
An illustrative campus survey finds that 40% of 500 respondents reported volunteering last year, against 25% in an earlier survey of the same campus. Find the change in percentage points and the percent change, and say what the figure does not show.
An illustrative group splits from a large faith body, asks members to give up television and to live near one another, and keeps apart from the rest of its town. Name its type, and say why its small size is not the reason.
A classmate says, "Weber showed that religion is the opium of the people, which caused capitalism." Find the two errors and correct each one.

Answers (worked reasoning — read after attempting)

Teaching engineering is the club's stated purpose, so it is a manifest function. Carpooling and parents' friendships were never the goal, so they are latent functions. The test is whether the effect was intended, not whether it was useful.
The change in percentage points is 40 − 25 = 15 percentage points. The percent change is 15 ÷ 25 × 100 = 60 percent. The figure shows self-reported volunteering on one campus; it does not show how much anyone volunteered, why the share rose, or anything about one student, and it is a description, not a cause.
It is a sect: it broke away from a larger body and sets itself apart from the wider society with strict demands. Size is not the test, because a large group that keeps apart can also be a sect, and a small group that accepts the wider society is not one.
First, the opium line is Marx's, from 1844, not Weber's. Second, Weber argued an elective affinity between a Protestant ethic and the spirit of capitalism, a fit that strengthens both, not a claim that religion caused capitalism, full stop.

Next up in this module: the Readings & Resources page, the lecture tutorial, the practice set, the quiz, the discussion, and the assignment.

Next week the same three-lens model turns to the economy, work, and Weber's types of authority.

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