How will these resources help you?

Ever since Durkheim, sociologists have described religion as enabling social consciousness, which in turn is a conduit for collective morality and conscience. Modern commentators have become more interested in the extent to which religion can help with crime and recidivism prevention. In a secular school setting, I find that my older pupils often come to the classroom with preconceptions from other subjects about religion being a means of social control and reinforcing the patriarchy. They are often fascinated by the idea that it can also have a positive collective and individual function in an ordered social space. I use these texts when studying justice and morality with higher students in Scotland, but they would be equally applicable at GCSE or A-level.