AS and First Year A Level Sociology – Whole Course Overview

Last Updated on August 24, 2016 by

An overview of the entire course for AS and first year A level sociology covering the following ‘modules’:

• Education with applied research methods (‘methods in context‘)
• Research methods
• Families and Households.

The overview below is taken directly from the AQA’s scheme of work and broken down further into more sub-topics to make it more teachable/ learnable. Within each ‘module’ there are about 7 sub-topics, and any of which could (although not necessarily) form the basis of one essay question, so you need to be able to write on each sub-topic for a solid 30 minutes.

This will relevant to most teachers and students teaching the AQA syllabus, unless you do an alternative option to families and households (which I don’t cover!)

My advice is that students generally need at least one side of revision notes for each of the subtopics below, with three-five points/ explanations/ examples and with evaluations (e.g. one side for Functionalism, another for Marxism etc…)

Education

1. Perspectives on Education

   1. Functionalism

   2. Marxism

   3. Neoliberalism and The New Right

   4. New Labour (a response to the New Right)

   5. Postmodernism

2. In school process and education

   1. Teacher Labelling and the Self Fulfilling Prophecy

   2. School organisation (banding and streaming)

   3. School Type, School Ethos and the Hidden Curriculum

   4. School Subcultures

5. Pupil Identities and the Education System

3. Education Policies

1. The strengths and limitations of successive government education polices:

1. 1944 – The Tripartite System – brief

2. 1965 – Comprehensivisation – brief

3. 1988 – The 1988 Education Reform Act

4. 1997 – New Labour’s Education Policies

5. 2010 – The Coalition and the New New Right’s Education Policies

2. Evaluating Education Policies

1. To what extent have policies raised standards in education?

2. To what extent have policies improved equality of opportunity?

3. Perspectives on selection as an educational policy

4. Perspectives on the increased privatisation of education

5. How is globalisation affecting educational and educational policy?

4. Social Class and Education

   1. Material Deprivation

   2. Cultural Deprivation

   3. Cultural Capital Theory

   4. In-School Factors

   5. The strengths and limitations of policies designed to tackle working class underachievement

5. Gender and Education

   1. Out of school factors which explain why girls do better than boys in education

   2. In-School factors which explain why girls do better than boys in education

   3. Explanations for gender and subject choice

   4. Feminist Perspectives on the role of education in society

   5. The strengths and limitations of policies designed to tackle gender differences in educational achievement

6. Ethnicity and Education

   1. Cultural factors which might explain ethnic differences in educational achievement

   2. In-School Factors which might explain ethnic differences in educational achievement

   3. The strengths and limitations of policies designed to tackle ethnic differences in educational achievement

Methods in Context

Here you need to be able to assess the strengths and limitations of using any method to research any aspect of education.

The different methods you need to be able to consider include – 1. Secondary Documents 2. Official statistics 3. Field Experiments 4. Lab experiments 5. Questionnaires 6. Unstructured Interviews 7. Overt Participant Observation 8. Covert Participant Observation 9. Non Participant Observation

The different aspects of education you might consider are • Researching how the values, attitudes, and aspirations of parents contribute to the achievement of certain groups of children • Why boys are more likely to be excluded than girls • Why white working class boys underachieve • Exploring whether teachers have ‘ideal pupils’ – whether they label certain groups of pupils favourably! • Assessing the relative importance of cultural deprivation versus material deprivation in explaining underachievement • Assessing the success of policies aimed to improve achievement such as ‘employing more black teachers’

Families and Households

1. Perspectives on Families

1.1 Functionalism

1.2 Marxism

1.3 Feminisms

1.4 The New Right

1.5 Postmodernism and Late Modernism

1.6 The Personal Life Perspective

2. Marriage and Divorce

2.1: Explaining the trends in marriage

2.2: Explaining the trends in divorce

2.3: Perspectives on the consequences of declining marriage and increasing divorce

2.4: Examining how marriage, divorce and cohabitation vary by social class, ethnicity, sexuality and across generations.

3. Family Diversity

3.1 – The underlying causes of the long term increase In Reconstituted families, Single parent families, Multi-generational households, Single person households and ‘Kidult’ households.

3.2 Perspectives on the social significance of the increase of all of the above (covered in 3.1).

3.3 – The extent to which family life varies by ethnicity, social class and sexuality.

4. Gender Roles, Domestic Labour and Power Relationships

4.1. To what extent are gender roles characterised by equality?

4.2. To what extent is the Domestic Division of Labour characterised by equality?

4.3. Issues of Power and Control in Relationships

4.4. To what extent has women going into paid work resulted in greater equality within relationships?

5. Childhood

5.1 – To what extent is ‘childhood socially constructed’

5.2 – The March of Progress view of childhood (and parenting) – The Child Centred Family and Society?

5.3 – Toxic Childhood and Paranoid Parenting – Criticisms of ‘The March of Progress View’

5.4 – Is Childhood Disappearing?

5.5 – Reasons for changes to childhood and parenting practices

Topic 6 – Social Policy

6.1 You need to be able to assess the effects of a range of policies using at least three key perspectives

• The New Right

• New Labour

• Feminism (Liberal and Radical)

6.2 You need notes on how the following policies affect men and women and children within the family

• Changes to the Divorce law

• Tax breaks for married couples

• Maternity and paternity pay

• Civil Partnerships

• Sure Start – early years child care

Topic 7: Demography

7.1: Reasons for changes to the Birth Rate

7.2: Reasons for changes to the Death Rate

7.3: The consequences of an Ageing Population

7.4: The reasons for and consequences of changes to patterns of Migration

Research Methods

1. The Factors Affecting Choice of Research Method – Theoretical, Ethical and Practical Factors.Introduction to Research Methods – Basic types of method and key terms

3. Secondary Quantitative Data – Official Statistics

4. Secondary Qualitative Data – Public and Private Documents

5. Experiments – Field and Laboratory

6. Interviews – Structured, Unstructured and Semi-Structured

7. Observational Methods – Cover and Overt Participant and Non-Participant Observation

8. Other methods – e.g. Longitudinal Studies

9. Stages of the Research Process

Crucial to the above is your mastery of the TPEN structure

1. Theoretical factors – Positivism, Interpretivism, Validity, Reliability, Representativeness

1. Practical factors –Time, Money, funding, opportunities for research including ease of access to respondents, and the personal skills and characteristics of the researcher.

2. Ethical factors – Thinking about how the research impacts on those involved with the research process: Informed consent, ensure confidentiality, be legal and ensure that respondents and those related to them are not subjected to harm. All this needs to be weighed up with the benefits of the research.

3. The Nature of the Topic studied. Some topics lend themselves to certain methods and preclude others!