St.

Anthony’s College
San Jose, Antique
High School Department

WEEK 14: EDUCATION, RELIGION AND BELIEF SYSTEM

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EDUCATION
 An individual learns his or her society’s values and beliefs through various institutions.
 An individual learns his/her society’s values and beliefs through various institutions and one of
the most pervading is that of the educational system.
 In sociology, education is viewed as a social institution that gives the society the potential to
reach development and success but in general education means the development of the intellect.
It is an act of thinking critically

FORMS OF EDUCATION
1. FORMAL EDUCATION
 The term used when a student learns inside the classroom.
 A student follows a curriculum and is being graded on his/her performance.
 Your experiences in your current school are fostered by this type of education.

2. NONFORMAL EDUCATION
 It emerged in response to the world crisis in education, identified by Philip H. Coombs in 1967,
who argued that the formal education systems have failed to address the changing dynamics of
the environment and the societies.
 The skills that are needed to foster economic development are lacking due to untrained labor
force that is not able to access formal education.
 Nonformal education enables a student to learn skills and knowledge through structured
learning experiences.

FUNCTIONS OF EDUCATION
1. SOCIALIZATION
 School is an agent of socialization
 Culture is not only transmitted inside the family and the community.
 Socialization of culture can also be traced inside the academic institutions.
 Schools are venues for learning culture and some of its elements such as language and
traditions.
 Inside the school, students can also interact with other people.

2. SOCIAL INTEGRATION
 The school is not only a place where one learns cultural norms and values from formal
instruction.
 An academic institution is also a community where many people who exhibit diverse cultural
orientation come and interact with each other.
 A school can be thought of as a community where people possessing different cultures and
ideas meet, interact, and learn from each other.
 St. Anthony’s College
San Jose, Antique
High School Department

WEEK 14: EDUCATION, RELIGION AND BELIEF SYSTEM

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3. PRODUCTIVE CITIZENRY
 Educational systems enable citizens to be productive members of society as they are
equipped with knowledge and skills that could contribute to the development of their
society’s systems and institutions.
 It is crucial for the educational system to adapt to the changing demands of the environment
to efficiently capacitate the individual.
 Being a productive citizen requires critical thinking.
 One must have the ability to understand his or her duties and be able to respond to them by
making decisions.
 Through education, individuals are introduced to concepts concerning democracy, power,
inequality and the like.
 This promotes greater awareness in his or her society.
 It encourages vigilance and participation.

4. SELF-ACTUALIZATION
 Education develops one’s sense of self-actualization.
 As a huge part of the discovery process of oneself, education encourages having the vision
to become self-actualized.
 It enables one to see your strengths and maintain them.
 It enables one to determine weaknesses and adjust them.
 Through education, human is empowered to experience and learn their true capacities that
lead to self-actualization.

RELIGION AND BELIEF SYSTEMS

RELIGION
 A set of attitudes, beliefs, and practices, pertaining to supernatural beings and forces. Such
beliefs may vary within a culture as well as among societies, and they May changes over time”
(Ember, Ember, and Peregrine, 2010).
 Early societies such as the Egyptians, Greeks and Sumerians used religious symbols and
practiced ritualistic ceremonies, which made religion one of the central parts of the development
of human societies ( Crossman,2014)
 One of the best examples of the wide practice of religion during ancient periods is the religion
and mythology of ancient Greece. Because religion has been associated with rituals, artifacts,
beliefs, and ceremonies, the ancient Greeks were considered to have had a religion or varieties
of religions due to their countless religious beliefs.

BELIEF SYSTEMS
1. Animism
 This is one of the earliest forms of religious pattern.
 These beliefs based on the spiritual concept of the universe and that everything that can be
found inside it is said to have soul and spirit, including plants, trees, animals and rocks.
 St. Anthony’s College
San Jose, Antique
High School Department

WEEK 14: EDUCATION, RELIGION AND BELIEF SYSTEM

______________________________________________________________________________
 Natural phenomena and environmental destructions are also understood as repercussions of
the interaction between humans and spirits.
 In animisms, spirit can be either good or bad form.

2. Polytheism
 Polytheism is rooted in these two words: poly, which means “many,” and theism, which,
means “God”.
 Polytheism is characterized by the worship of many deities, which illustrate ways of life
including beliefs, practices and traditions
 Polytheistic deities consist of variants of the sky god, death deity, mother goddess, love
goddess, creator deity, trickster deity, life-death-rebirth deity, culture hero.

3. Monotheism
 Monotheism strongly believes in one God, which accountable for all the things happening
in the world including the world’s creation and existence.
 Hume (1755) believed that the differences between polytheism and monotheism led to the
changes of the human mind, wherein rationally is more associated with monotheism while
tolerance is to polytheism.
 Monotheistic societies tend to have one supreme political leader, such as a king, which is
consistent with the belief that there is also one supreme deity.

TYPES OF RELIGIOUS PRACTITIONER

1. SHAMAN
 is also known as a community healer.
 is also involved in other nonreligious activities in his community, making his religious
functions an occasional preoccupation.
2. SORCERER and WITCH
 are poorly regarded in their societies due to the perceived malevolence that they inflict on
individuals. They have low social and economic status and they often ostracized by their
communities.
3. MEDIUM
 is well favored by members of his or her community as he or she is involved in healing
rituals while in a possessed trance.
 A medium is also capable of performing divinations to predict future courses of action. Most
mediums tend to be female who perform other roles when not religious practice.
4. PRIEST
 tends to be male whose sole preoccupation is to officiate religious ceremonies and rituals.
 Due to his status in religious hierarchy, he is highly regarded by community members.
 St. Anthony’s College
San Jose, Antique
High School Department

WEEK 14: EDUCATION, RELIGION AND BELIEF SYSTEM

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TYPES OF RELIGIOUS ACTIVITIES
1. MAGIC
 This form of activity constitutes the “manipulation of supernatural forces for the purpose of
intervening in a wide range of human activities and natural events”.
 Magic deals with solving a current problem by seeking the intervention of the divine through
the performance and offering of gifts.
 The Native American practice of rain dance to invoke deities to release rain is an example
of magic

2. DIVINATION
 This religious activity intends to gain from the divine practical answers for any concern that
may range from war plans to marriage choices.
 One of the most popular forms of divination is the I-CHING an ancient Chinese numerical
system that is believed to predict future occurrences. This was highly popular during the
Warring States Period of China, as military leaders utilized the I-Ching to strategized
campaign.

3. SORCERY and WITHCRAFT

 A sorcerer inflicts harm on individual by the use of materials such as dolls, wands, and
medicines.
 The practice of voodoo is an example of this, as practitioners use materials related to the
victim such as hair or pieces of their clothing to cast sickness or pain on them.
 The practice of witchcraft promotes the same effect with a mere difference in a method.
 Unlike with sorcery that uses materials to inflict harm, witchcraft only uses emotions and
words of the practitioner to impact its victim.
 The Filipino believe in Kulam sa Hangin , Which inflicts harm on the victim through curses
uttered by a practitioner , is an example of their religious activity.
 These activities promote a direct interaction with the divine, as an individual or groups
communicate their thoughts and desires to the supernatural through uttered requests
(Prayers), celebrations (feasts, and gifts (sacrifices).

TYPES OF RELIGIOUS ORGANIZATIONS

1. CHURCH
 Ernst Troeltsh(1931) defined the church as the type of religious organization that is well
integrated into a larger society.
 Ex. Catholic Church

2. SECT
 If a church is well integrated in the society, a sect is a type of religious organization that
stands apart from the society
 is a type of religious organization that stands apart from society in general.
 St. Anthony’s College
San Jose, Antique
High School Department

WEEK 14: EDUCATION, RELIGION AND BELIEF SYSTEM

______________________________________________________________________________
 A religion embraces all kinds of people but a sect limits its membership into selected groups
of people who live strict lives.

3. CULT
 is a kind of religion that practices unconventional ways and is largely outside the society’s
tradition. A cult often times centered on a charismatic leader which they consider as a guide
to what is divine. Since a cult practices a kind of unconventional religious rituals, they are
often viewed by the society as deviant and even evil sometimes.
RELIGIONS OF THE WORLD
1. Christianity
 One of the oldest religions of the world.
 The Catholic Church believed that it was Christ himself who instituted the Christian Church
through Saint Peter, one of the disciples of Jesus.
 The teaching of Christianity center on the life of Christ and his teaching which was carried
by the apostles.
 It focuses on selfless love for God and withdrawal from the clutch of material possessions
which was believed by the church to hinder man’s ascent to heaven.
2. Islam
 The People who believed in Islamism are called Muslims.
 Islam centers on the message of God to Muhammad, a prophet or messenger of God.
 Muhammad wrote the message of God in the sacred book for Muslims called Koran
 Islam has pillars of faith. These are: (a) Recognizing Allah (God) as the one true God and
Muhammad as his messenger. (b)Ritual prayer. (c) Giving Alms to the poor (d) Fasting
during the month of Ramadan (e) making a pilgrimage at least once in a lifetime to the sacred
house of Allah in Mecca.
3. Judaism
 Judaism predates Christianity for about thousands of years. They started in Mesopotamia as
herding nomads before they made a covenant with the true God.
 The Jews and Christianity introduced the concepts of monotheism and love to the western
world
4. Hinduism
 The oldest of all worlds’ religions.
 Hindus believed that God resides in the entirely of the cosmos
 They claim that the spiritual ascending of a person is rested in the principle of Karma.
 The principle of Karma adheres to the idea that all actions have spiritual consequences and
a person is inside a circle of rebirth as long as he does not yet achieve moksha, a state of
spiritual perfection.
5. Buddhism
 Buddhism originated in one person, Siddharta Gautama.
 Buddha believed that the problems of life would not be solved by money but by withdrawing
oneself from the world through meditation.
 St. Anthony’s College
San Jose, Antique
High School Department

WEEK 14: EDUCATION, RELIGION AND BELIEF SYSTEM

______________________________________________________________________________
6. Confucianism
 Confucianism was a religion which started by the philosopher named Confucius.
 Confucius was deeply moved by the suffering of the people which he saw in his life.
 Confucius instructed his disciples to live in accordance to a code of moral conduct to guide
them in this life.
 Confucianism is different from the other world religions because it somehow lacks the
element of what is sacred.
 It is merely composed of moral guidelines which can be explained by purely rational terms.