Last Updated on February 6, 2020 by Karl Thompson
Links to some of the contemporary news items, documentaries and research studies which I’ve blogged about in 2019-2020, which are relevant to the sociology of education.
According to the AQA sociology specification, students are expected to be able to use contemporary examples to illustrate the points they make in their sociology exams.
Links to relevant blog posts….
- Class, gender ethnicity and your chances of getting into university – Free School Meals students are still about twice less likely to make it university compared to those not in receipt of free school meals. Meanwhile the gender gap continues to increase, and white students lack behind nearly every other ethnic group when it comes to university entrance.
- How to break into the elite – a documentary looking at numerous case studies of how employers want cultural capital in their employees, and so how lack of cultural capital prevents working class kids from getting the top jobs.
- Inside the school cuts crisis – a documentary looking at how funding cuts to education are leading to schools cutting SEN provision, Useful to evaluate New Right education policies.
- School league tables are changing to include the results of excluded pupils – which shows how official stats can change in response to some schools gaming the results system by excluding more than their ‘fair share’ of pupils.
- Student debt and future careers natural experiment – In 2019, a Tech Billionaire wrote off the debts of an entire cohort who graduated from his university – now we just need to wait half a decade or so to see what the effects are!
- University of Cambridge appoints its first black female head of a college – suggesting more gender and race equality.
If you want to know more about how to use contemporary sociology…. why not attend my revision webinar series…
