Suchergebnisse

AbstractThe Truth and Reconciliation Commission has indicated that education has a central role to play in the reconciliation process. This article assesses how well sociology is doing in this regard by looking at what introductory textbooks say about three topics: (1) residential schools, (2) Indigenous "religion;" and (3) the social construction of Indigenous identities. The findings are mixed. While most textbooks mention the "loss of culture" and the abuse associated with those schools, discussions of intergenerational trauma could be much improved. Discussions of Indigenous religion are still guided by a Western model that has long been regarded as inappropriate to Indigenous cultures. All textbooks ignore the ways in which Indigenous identities are socially constructed and how this is linked to the dramatic growth of the Indigenous population over the last several decades. A concluding section draws upon the work of Indigenous scholars in suggesting ways of decolonizing textbooks.

A section on "world religions" (WRs) is now routinely included in the religion chapters of introductory sociology textbooks. Looking carefully at these WR sections, however, two things seem puzzling. The first is that the criteria for defining a WR varies considerably from textbook to textbook; the second is that these WRs sections contain little or no sociology. These puzzles are resolved, however, once we understand that under the guise of promoting "diversity," these sections are really affirming the universality of what has long been identified as a distinctively modern and very Western view of religion. The article concludes with some practical suggestions for improving the religion chapters in introductory textbooks. One such suggestion is that paying more attention to Native American "religion" would be a useful way of introducing students to the view that religion is a social construction that has no stable transhistorical and transcultural meaning.

The first half of the article presents a critique of Lévi‐Strauss' well‐known analysis of the Oedipus myth. A consideration of Greek beliefs suggests that Lévi‐Strauss is incorrect in tying certain events in that myth to the "overvaluation of blood relations" and in asserting that the myth is concerned with the "affirmation/denial of man's autochthonous origins." The second half of the article presents a different structural analysis of the entire Theban Saga, of which the Oedipus myth is but a part. It concludes (1) that Lévi‐Strauss is correct in identifying a series of events in the myth which indicate the devaluation of blood relations, but that these events specifically refer to the devaluation of patrilineal kin ties and that the range of events indicating the devaluation of patrilineal ties is broader than his analysis would suggest, and (2) there is another series of repeated events (unmentioned by Lévi‐Strauss) which indicates the affirmation of patrilineal kin ties. The final hypothesis— that the opposition between the devaluation/affirmation of patrilineal kin ties underlies the Theban Saga— "makes sense" in terms of Greek history, as the period in which the Olympian myths look their present form is also the period in which the Greeks moved from a society organized along patrilineal kin ties to one organized around allegiance to the polis. [structuralism, Oedipus myth, myth and social structure, Lévi‐Strauss, anthropological theory]

This article attempts to resolve certain ambiguities within Lévi‐Strauss's structuralist approach to myth by using the theory of cognitive dissonance to clarify the concept "opposition" and Heiderian social psychology to specify a procedure whereby a myth can be decomposed into its constituents units. The value of the refinements suggested here is illustrated through structural analyses of the Biblical account of the Flood and of Lévi‐Strauses theory itself.