Religion and Social Groups

This lesson examines the relationship between religion and four key social variables: social class, gender, ethnicity, and age. The AQA specification requires you to understand how religious participation, belief, and affiliation vary across these social groups and to evaluate sociological explanations for these patterns.

Key Definition: Religious participation refers to measurable involvement in organised religion — church attendance, prayer, membership of religious organisations. It is distinct from religious belief (personal faith) and religious affiliation (identifying with a religion without necessarily participating).

---

Religion and Social Class

Class and Church Attendance

There is a complex relationship between social class and religious participation. Historically, the Church of England has been associated with the upper and middle classes — famously described as "the Conservative Party at prayer." The established church has traditionally drawn its clergy, leadership, and most active members from the professional and managerial classes.

However, other religious traditions draw their membership from different class backgrounds:

• Catholicism in England has historically been associated with the Irish working class, though this has changed with upward social mobility.
• Methodism was originally a working-class movement (its founder, John Wesley, specifically targeted miners and factory workers).
• Pentecostal and charismatic churches have strong appeal among working-class and minority ethnic communities.
• New Religious Movements vary: world-affirming NRMs (Scientology, TM) tend to attract the middle class; world-rejecting NRMs may attract both the middle class (idealistic young people) and the marginalised.

Stark and Bainbridge: Compensation and Deprivation

Stark and Bainbridge (1985) argued that religion offers compensators — promises of future rewards (e.g., eternal life, divine justice) — that substitute for real rewards that are unavailable. People who are deprived of material success and social status are more likely to turn to religion for compensatory rewards.

This explains why sects and cults tend to attract different class groups:

• Sects (world-rejecting, demanding) tend to attract the deprived and marginalised — those who have been denied the rewards of mainstream society. Sect membership offers an alternative status system in which spiritual devotion, rather than wealth or education, determines one's worth.
• Cults and client cults (world-affirming, offering practical techniques) tend to attract the middle class — those who have achieved material success but seek something more (spiritual fulfilment, self-improvement, meaning).

Evaluation

• Stark and Bainbridge's theory explains the class composition of different types of religious group.
• However, the concept of "deprivation" is vague — it can be stretched to explain almost anything (the deprived turn to religion for compensation; the affluent turn to religion for meaning — both are explained by "deprivation").
• Weber's concept of the theodicy of disprivilege offers a more precise explanation of why the poor are attracted to certain forms of religion — religion explains and justifies their suffering while promising future rewards.

---

Religion and Gender

The Gender Gap in Religion

One of the most consistent findings in the sociology of religion is that women are more religious than men across almost all measures and in almost all societies. Women are more likely than men to:

• Attend religious services regularly.
• Pray and engage in private devotion.
• Express belief in God.
• Describe religion as important in their lives.
• Participate in New Age and holistic spirituality.

This pattern holds across different religions, denominations, and countries, making it one of the most robust findings in the field.

Miller and Hoffmann: Risk and Socialisation

Miller and Hoffmann (1995) proposed two explanations for the gender gap in religiosity:

1. Differential Socialisation

Women are socialised to be more submissive, passive, obedient, and nurturing than men. These qualities are compatible with religious values — obedience to God, humility, caring for others. Men are socialised to be more independent, assertive, and risk-taking — qualities less compatible with religious submission.

Religious participation is, in some sense, a feminine activity in Western culture — it involves emotional expression, community, caring, and nurturing relationships. Men may avoid religion because it conflicts with dominant models of masculinity.

2. Differential Risk Preference

Miller and Hoffmann argued that men are greater risk-takers than women. Not participating in religion is, in a sense, a risk — if God exists and demands worship, non-participation could have eternal consequences. Women, being more risk-averse, are more likely to "play it safe" by participating in religion.

Evaluation of Miller and Hoffmann

• The differential socialisation thesis is supported by extensive evidence of gender differences in values, emotional expression, and social behaviour.
• However, it raises the question of why women are socialised differently — is it biology, patriarchy, or both? The explanation risks being circular.
• The risk-preference theory is creative but difficult to test empirically. It assumes that religious participation is motivated by fear of punishment, which may not reflect the actual experience of most believers.

Linda Woodhead: Gender and Religious Participation

Woodhead (2002, 2007) offered a more nuanced analysis of gender and religion, arguing that the relationship is changing as women's social roles change.

Woodhead argued that women's higher levels of religious participation have historically been linked to their role in the private sphere — the home, family, and community. Religion provided women with a source of identity, status, community, and moral authority within this sphere. As the primary carers of children and the elderly, women were responsible for maintaining family religious practice — saying grace, attending church, sending children to Sunday school.

However, as women have increasingly entered the public sphere — paid employment, higher education, political participation — their patterns of religious participation are changing. Working women have less time for church attendance and are less invested in the traditional domestic role that religion once reinforced.

Woodhead predicted that as gender roles continue to converge, the gender gap in religiosity would narrow. Evidence from the Kendal Project (Heelas and Woodhead, 2005) supported this: the holistic milieu (yoga, meditation, healing) was dominated by middle-aged, middle-class women — suggesting that women are not abandoning spirituality but are moving from the congregational domain to more individualised, subjective forms of spiritual practice.

---

Religion and Ethnicity

Patterns of Religious Participation by Ethnicity

In Britain, there are significant differences in religious participation between ethnic groups:

• Black Caribbean and Black African communities have relatively high levels of church attendance, particularly in Pentecostal, evangelical, and charismatic churches.
• South Asian communities (Pakistani, Bangladeshi, Indian) have high levels of religious participation — Islam, Hinduism, and Sikhism play a central role in community life.
• White British people have the lowest levels of religious participation and the highest rates of identifying as having "no religion."

Explanations for Higher Religiosity Among Ethnic Minorities

Bird (1999): Cultural Defence and Cultural Transition

Bird argued that religion serves two important functions for ethnic minority communities: