Sociological Perspectives – Key Supporting Evidence

Below are a few quantitative and qualitative sources (case studies and statistics) that can be used to illustrate aspects of the main perspectives within A-level sociology – Functionalism, Marxism, Feminism, Social Action Theory and Post and Late Modernism

Functionalism

• Bruce Parry: participant observation with ‘The Tribe’
• Educating Yorkshire
• Official statistics show declining family Size
• Cross national statistics – positive correlation between economic development and social development
• Official statistics – the positive correlation between truancy and crime
• The Cambridge study in delinquency and development

Marxism

• The correlation between increasing neoliberal policies and increasing global inequality
• Official statistics show a positive correlation between material deprivation and underachievement in education
• Official Statistics show an increase in childhood obesity, suggesting a link between advertising, pester power and poor child health
• Case studies of the huge economic and social costs of corporate crime: Enron, Bhopal
• Case studies of exploitation in the developing world. E.g. Ship breaking in Bangladesh
• Case studies of elite criminals not being punished for their crimes – e.g. Mark Ashley of Sports Direct

Feminism

• Official Statistics on gender equality and empowerment – no country on earth has gender equality
• Statistics on the Domestic Division of Labour show that women spend twice as long on domestic chores as men
• Official statistics on domestic violence show that ¼ women are victims in their lifetimes, more than men
• A range of qualitative evidence from the Everyday Sexism Project
• Statistics on gender and subject choice – 97% of hairdressing apprenticeships = female….
• The prevalence of pornography and prostitution and their links with sex trafficking

Social Action Theory

• Life-histories and Facebook profiles reveal complex and diverse family structures
• Rosenthal and Jacobsen’s field experiment showing the self- fulfilling prophecy
• Jock Young’s research on the drug takers
• Self-report studies demonstrating that official crime stats are socially constructed
• The fact that Gok Wan is famous
• Max Weber’s Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism

Postmodernism

• Judith Stacey: The Divorce Extended Family: show complex family structures
• My Monkey-Baby
• Research studies on the importance of identity in education – e.g. Carolyn Jackson and the Ladettes
• Stan Cohen’s research on the Mods and Rockers
• The happy pierced prostitute who has a client who shoves golf-balls up his ass
• Vanilla vloggers such as Zoella

Late Modernism

• Official Statistics on growing global problems such as climate change, global crime and migration
• The increase in New Social Movements such as the Green Movement
• Jock Young – The Vertigo of Late Modernity
• The fact that many nation states have nuclear weapons
• The high global expenditure on the military
• The positive correlation between educational achievement and income – nationally and globally