functionalist

• collective conscience


  the common beliefs and values that bind a society together
• Durkheim's cognitive functions of religion


  religion as a source of our intellectual or cognitive capabilities - origins of concepts and categories such as causation and space
• Malinowski's psychological functions of religion


  religion helps people cope with emotional stress that would undermine social solidarity in situations of life crisis and when the outcome unknown
• Parson's view on religion


  -creates and legitimates society's central values -primary source of meaning
• Bellah view of religion


  civil religion - belief that attaches sacred qualities to society itself e.g. America or football
• Durkheim's scared and profane


  Sacred: the religious, transcendent world

  Profane: the secular, everyday world
• Durkheim study of totemism


  studied an Aboriginal Australian tribe. the totem symbolised the clans origins and identity, reinforcing solidarity