01
Front
What is a rite of passage?
Back
A ceremony that marks or helps bring about a transition in a person’s or group’s social position, identity, or relationship to the sacred.
Free Online Flashcard Deck
5 Rites of Passage and Ritual Change Free Online FlashCards
Study 5 Rites of Passage and Ritual Change with 12 free online flashcards. Review key terms, definitions, and concepts with this interactive flashcard deck.
12 cards
02
Front
What are van Gennep’s three phases of passage?
Back
Separation, transition, and incorporation.
03
Front
What happens during the separation phase?
Back
Participants symbolically or physically leave an earlier role or condition; actions such as changing clothes or leaving home can signal this shift.
04
Front
What is liminality?
Back
A threshold condition in which participants are no longer fully in their former role but have not yet entered the new one.
05
Front
What does communitas describe?
Back
A sense of direct fellowship that participants may experience together during a ritual.
06
Front
What happens during incorporation?
Back
A concluding act that welcomes participants into a recognized status, such as a new name, public announcement, or certificate.
07
Front
What is an initiation?
Back
It admits a person to a new status, group, or body of knowledge.
08
Front
How can ritual signs help establish an initiate’s new status?
Back
When a community recognizes signs such as a mark, garment, or title, those signs help make the new status socially real.
09
Front
Which life changes do life-cycle ceremonies commonly address?
Back
They address changes such as birth, coming of age, marriage, and death.
10
Front
What social work can a wedding perform?
Back
It can publicly establish a relationship and connect households.
11
Front
What can funeral rites organize?
Back
They can distinguish the deceased from the living while organizing remembrance and mourners’ responsibilities.
12
Front
What characterizes a healing ritual?
Back
It responds to illness, distress, or misfortune through actions, speech, relationships, and culturally meaningful symbols.
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