What are New Religious Movements (NRMs)?

Religious organisations that have emerged since the 1960s, including world-rejecting, world-accommodating, and world-affirming types.

What are the three types in Wallis's typology of NRMs?

World-rejecting movements (hostile to outside world, communal living), world-accommodating movements (focus on religious experience), and world-affirming movements (offer techniques for success).

What characterises world-rejecting NRMs?

Communal living, charismatic leadership, total commitment, hostility to outside world, and often apocalyptic beliefs.

What characterises world-affirming NRMs?

They accept the goals of wider society but offer new means to achieve them, such as techniques for self-improvement, success, or unlocking human potential.

What characterises world-accommodating NRMs?

They focus on religious experience rather than worldly concerns, neither fully accepting nor rejecting wider society.

What are the key characteristics of New Age movements?

Eclecticism, individualism, self-spirituality, belief in human potential, and rejection of traditional religious authority.

AQA A-Level Sociology 7192

Education

Topic overview The role and functions of education Class differences in educational achievement Labelling, subcultures and processes within schools Gender and educational achievement Ethnicity and educational achievement Selection and marketisation Privatisation and vocational education Educational policy, equality and globalisation

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Topic overview Research design and choosing a method Sources of data and types of data Positivism, interpretivism and research ethics Consensus, conflict, structural and social action theories Modernity and post-modernity Is sociology a science?Objectivity, value freedom and social policy

Culture and IdentityOptional topic

Topic overview Conceptions of culture Socialisation and the agencies of socialisation The self, identity and difference Identity, age, disability, ethnicity, gender and class Identity, production, consumption and globalisation

Families and HouseholdsOptional topic

Topic overview Functionalist views of the family Marxist and feminist views of the family The New Right, postmodernism and family policy Marriage, cohabitation and divorce Family diversity and the personal life perspective Conjugal roles and domestic labour Power relationships and domestic violence The social construction of childhood Birth rates and death rates Family size and the ageing population Migration and globalisation

HealthOptional topic

Topic overview The social construction of health and models of illness Class and gender inequalities in health Ethnic and regional inequality, and access to health care Mental illness and the power of the medical profession The sick role and the globalised health industry

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Topic overview Poverty: definitions, explanations and distribution The welfare state and welfare provision The division of labour and the control of work Work, worklessness and life chances Globalisation and the global division of labour

Beliefs in SocietyOptional topic

Topic overview Ideology and science as belief systems Functionalist views of religion Marxist and feminist views of religion Religion as a force for social change Churches, sects, denominations and cults New religious movements and New Age movements Religion, gender, ethnicity, age and social class Secularisation Believing without belonging and postmodern religion Globalisation, fundamentalism and religion worldwide

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The MediaOptional topic

Topic overview The new media and its significance Ownership, control and media globalisation The selection and presentation of the news Media representations of social groups Media effects and models of the audience Reception analysis and selective filtering

Stratification and DifferentiationOptional topic

Topic overview Theories of stratification Life chances and dimensions of inequality Defining and measuring social class Changing structures of inequality and globalisation Social mobility

Crime and Deviance

Beliefs in Society

New religious movements and New Age movements

1 thing to know
Paper 2

Overview

Wallis's typology, New Age beliefs, theodicy, and relative deprivation as an explanation of membership.

What you need to know

Answer each one before you reveal it.

Your recallNot started

Who and when

What is theodicy, and what explains the growth of new religious movements?

Questions from this subtopic

Each one with the model answer underneath.

1
What are New Religious Movements (NRMs)?
Model answer
Religious organisations that have emerged since the 1960s, including world-rejecting, world-accommodating, and world-affirming types.
2
What are the three types in Wallis's typology of NRMs?
Model answer
World-rejecting movements (hostile to outside world, communal living), world-accommodating movements (focus on religious experience), and world-affirming movements (offer techniques for success).
3
What characterises world-rejecting NRMs?
Model answer
Communal living, charismatic leadership, total commitment, hostility to outside world, and often apocalyptic beliefs.
4
What characterises world-affirming NRMs?
Model answer
They accept the goals of wider society but offer new means to achieve them, such as techniques for self-improvement, success, or unlocking human potential.
5
What characterises world-accommodating NRMs?
Model answer
They focus on religious experience rather than worldly concerns, neither fully accepting nor rejecting wider society.
6
What are the key characteristics of New Age movements?
Model answer
Eclecticism, individualism, self-spirituality, belief in human potential, and rejection of traditional religious authority.

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Education

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