Patterns of Human Behavior
| Subject: | 👩🏼🤝👩🏽 Gender Studies |
| Type: | Exploratory Essay |
| Pages: | 4 |
| Word count: | 792 |
| Topics: | Gender Equality, ✝️ Christianity, Church, Leadership, ⚧️ Gender Roles |
essay ASAP?
The patterns of human behavior in the church illustrate the need for research to address the problems in the community. Therefore, a research question has been developed from the observation process: How can gender equality be enhanced in the Catholic Church environment? The research question presents a social problem because leadership of most religious organizations is dominated by the male gender.
The main research variables are dependent and independent. The independent variable is the leadership opportunities in the church. The dependent variables are the strategies for involving women in leadership. The main leadership opportunities in the church are priesthood, health, and education. The strategies for improving women participation in church affairs include training and change of church laws.
The hypothesis for the second observation research is: Men dominate programs and leadership in the church. This hypothesis is appropriate because the study aims at illustrating the long-term changes that should be adopted to make the females worshippers to be active members of the church. The hypothesis recognizes that in the short-term, the status quo will be maintained because the men will still dominate church leadership activities.
I repeated the observation study after two weeks. The church routine was still the same. The church service was still conducted by the priest. The altar boys performed all the supporting functions. The church choir was headed by a male artist. Even though the nuns were present, their responsibilities or roles were less pronounced.
The patterns of behavior in the second observation support my hypothesis. This is because there were no behavior changes regarding the participation of women in the leadership activities. The men dominated leadership because they were the dominant gender in all church programs. Changing of the gender roles in the church is a long-term activity that requires the support of the church leaders.
The second observation illustrated that the church environment has diverse people. The worshippers belong to different racial categories, for example, Caucasians, African Americans, and Latinos. The Bible study sessions were divided into the children, youth, and adult categories to cater for the unique needs of the diverse people. I went to the church in the morning and the weather was cool and cloudy.
The observations support the hypothesis. In the history of the Catholic Church, men were given prominent roles. This tradition has been passed on to the present generation. The men lead all the church programs, while the women are given less prominent roles. For example, the nuns work based on the instructions of the priest. There is need to create sufficient publicity on the benefits that women leadership can offer in the Catholic Church environment.
The conflict theory shows power in the church environment. The males have authority because they lead all church programs. The feminist theory aims at improving the position of women in the church, especially by involving them in key decision-making positions (Mouzelis, 2016). Social change is a concept that alters the human activities in the church. The contribution of women in church affairs should be recognized and rewarded. Stratification is a concept that shows diversity. The church has people from different age groups, for instance, children and adults. Prejudice is a sociological concept in the church environment. Women are not viewed as competent to pursue key church programs like priesthood. Socialization is a concept that encourages human interaction. In church, people interact through the Bible studies and the choir training sessions. Bureaucracy is a concept that shows responsibilities and authority in an organization (Jarvie, 2014). Key decisions in the church are approved by the priest. Culture is a concept that demonstrates the church practices and procedures. The main church service is conducted on Sundays. All people are allowed to pray and worship in the church.
The inductive reasoning shows that allowing women to lead prayers and sermons will improve church performance by attracting new congregants. The deductive observation shows that changing the church rules will enhance the satisfaction and participation of women in church programs. My observation strategy changed to focus on gender relations and involvement in church activities.
I prefer deductive reasoning in the research process. This is because church performance will improve if women are given prominent roles. Allowing women to be active participants in church programs and the decision-making process will enable them to understand that they are valued in the society.
- Becker, G. S. (2013). The economic approach to human behavior. University of Chicago press.
- Carter, I. (2013). Human behavior in the social environment. AldineTransaction.
- Giddens, A., Duneier, M., Appelbaum, R. P., & Carr, D. S. (2016). Introduction to sociology. WW Norton.
- Jarvie, I. C. (2014). Concepts and Society (RLE Social Theory). Routledge.
- Mouzelis, N. P. (2016). Back to sociological theory: The construction of social orders. Springer.
Offered for reference purposes only.