Sentence Sorts for Teaching A-Level Sociology – How Useful Are They?

Last Updated on August 28, 2017 by Karl Thompson

Matching exercises or ‘sentence sorts’ simply involve students matching the concept/ sociologist/ perspective/ method to a definition/ statement.

Simple example: Decide whether the sentences are below are Functionalist or Marxist – simply write ‘F’ or ‘M’ next to the sentence. 1.            Education reproduces inequality by justifying privilege and attributing poverty to personal failure. 2.            The education system plays an important part in the process of encouraging individuals to have a sense of loyalty and commitment to society as a whole. 3.            The teaching of subjects such as history enables children to see the link between themselves and wider society.  The National Curriculum, with it’s emphasis on British history shows pupils that they are part of something larger than their immediate social group. 4.            Although school presents itself as being meritocratic, the hidden curriculum produces a subservient workforce, who accept hierarchies of power.

 The easiest way to format these is simply as above – a title, brief instruction, and anywhere from 10 (or less if you like) to 20 (more is probably too many) statements/ definitions. You might like to use a grid (as in example 2 over page) for paper versions as it provides a more obvious space for students to write into. For more difficult topics, provide a jumbled list of concepts at the bottom.

Obviously if you’re designing your own, do the answer version first, then just delete the single or short-phrase answers. Numbering the definitions/ statements makes feedback easier!

Topics matching exercises work well especially for

• After Functionalism, Marxism and Feminism, or all the perspectives for any of the topics within A-level sociology.
• For material deprivation/ cultural deprivation and social/ cultural capital in class and education.
• For the main changes with different waves of education policy
• For strengths and limitations of any research method – one of the best I’ve seen is a range of sentences which are either strengths or limitations for either lab or field experiments.
• Any sub-topic that’s very conceptual – such as childhood within the family.

Different ways of administering sentence sorts

• Personally I still like the one-side of paper method – simply needs about 12 definitions/ statements and students just write in the concept/ method or whatever next to it.
• These days of course, you can always put sentence sorts online – Quizlet, or Socrative work very well for this.
• A way of adding in ‘stretch’ to this is to add in a third column in which you ask students to ‘give an example’ or ‘the opposite’ or to provide supporting evidence, or even criticise the concept/
• NB The ‘gap fill exercise’ – don’t be fooled by a gap-fill paragraph exercise, it’s basically just a matching exercise/ sentence sort in disguise.

Three examples of Sentence Sorts for A-level sociology

The examples below show three typical applications of this method…. perspectives, ‘match the stat’ (which is quite good to introduce a new topic) and concepts. Unforunately they don’t format very well on a blog, but they’re just to give you an idea – they’ve all been designed to fit on one side of A4 paper. 

Example 1: Sociological perspectives on the role of education

Sort the following statements into either Marxism, Functionalism or Feminism, simply write in F/M or Fem….

1. Girls may follow the same curriculum as boys, may sit side by side with boys in classes taught by the same teachers and yet emerge from school with the implicit understanding that the world is a man’s world, in which women take second place.
2. Education reproduces inequality by justifying privilege and attributing poverty to personal failure.
3. The education system plays an important part in the process of encouraging individuals to have a sense of loyalty and commitment to society as a whole.
4. The teaching of subjects such as history enables children to see the link between themselves and wider society. The National Curriculum, with it’s emphasis on British history shows pupils that they are part of something larger than their immediate social group.
5. Classroom interaction reflects the sexist attitudes and male dominance of the wider society.
6. By transmitting and reinforcing the culture of society to new generations, education helps to ensure the continuity of rules and values.
7. Although school presents itself as being meritocratic, the hidden curriculum produces a subservient workforce, who accept hierarchies of power.
8. The classroom is a ‘mini-society’ which provides a training ground for the wider society and eases the transition from childhood to adulthood.
9. Education has an important role of society reproduction, meaning that it is involved in the reproduction of new generations of workers appropriately schooled to accept their roles in capitalist society.
10. Schools help to abridge the gap from the ascribed status of the family to the achieved status of society as a whole.
11. Schools promote the shared value of achievement – at school young people are rewarded for academic achievement with good exam results. This, in turn, socialises young people for their adult roles.
12. The education system is the main agency for ideological control. People accept their situation in life because at school they have learn that capitalism is just and reasonable.
13. The hidden curriculum, including the social relations in the classroom and the attitudes and expectations of teachers, prepare girls for male domination and control.
14. Schools prepare pupils for their roles in the workforce. Most are trained as workers and are taught to accept future exploitation and are provided with an education and qualifications to match their future work roles.
15. The hidden curriculum produces a fragmentation of knowledge so that ordinary workers do not become educated and overthrow the ruling class.
16. Schools reinforce gender inequality in wider society.

 

Example 2: Key facts and stats about families and households in Modern Britain

Match the stat to the question. All of these issues come up at some point over the next eight weeks of the course. 

1. What percentage of marriages end in divorce?  42%
2. How many children do the average family have? 92
3. How much does it cost to raise a child to the age of 18? £230,000
4. What is the average age which women have their first child? 30
5. When did rape in marriage become illegal? 1991
6. On average, how much more money a year does it cost to live a year if you are a single person living alone? £250,000
7. What percentage of households with children in are single parent households? 25%
8. What proportion of relationships consists of same-sex couples? 152 000
9. What percentage of men have been victims of domestic violence? 13%

OBVIOUSLY I’ve given the answers here, the numbers would be at the bottom, I’ve also been lazy and missed out sources.

Example 3: Key Concepts in the sociology of the family

Concept	Definition
Birth Rate	The number of babies born per thousand per year.
Civil Partnership	The legally or formally recognised union of a man and a woman (or in some countries two people of the same sex) in a committed relationship.
Co-habitation	Two people living together in the same household in an emotionally intimate, committed relationship without being officially married.
Death Rate	The number of deaths per thousand members of a population per year.
Emotion Work	Thinking about the emotional well-being of other members of the family and acting in ways which will be of emotional benefit to others. For example, hugging and reassuring children when they have nightmares, organizing Christmas and birthday parties so that everyone feels included and has a good time.
Individualisation	The process where individuals have more freedom to make life-choices and shape their identities because of a weakening of traditional social structures, norms and values. For example, secularization means people have more choice over whether they should get married or simply cohabit.
Instrumental Role	The provider or breadwinner role which involves going out to work and earning money for the family – the traditional male role within the family.
Matrifocal Household	A family structure in which mothers are the heads of household and fathers have less power and control in family life and the allocation of resources.
Net Migration	The difference between the numbers of people immigrating to and emigrating from a country.
Nuclear Family	A man and a woman and their dependent children, either their own or adopted.
Patriarchy	A society where men hold the power and women are excluded, disadvantaged or oppressed.  An example of a patriarchal society is one which women are not allowed to vote, but men are.
Primary Socialisation	The first stages of learning the norms and values of a society; learning basic skills and norms, such as language, and basic manners.
Serial Monogamy	Where an individual has a string of committed relationships, one after the other.
Social Construction of Childhood	The idea that the norms and values and social roles associated with childhood are influenced by society, rather than being determined by the biological age of a child.
Toxic Childhood	Where social changes, especially the invention of new technologies, does increasing amounts of harm to children. For example, the internet and mobile phones results in screen saturation with increases anxiety and reduces attention spans.

NB – If you print this off, the grid format is much easier on the eye than the non-grid version. 

 

How useful are sentence sorts in teaching and learning sociology?

Open question.. please do lemme know what you think!