What is Political Globalisation?

‘Until the end of the Second World War, national governments were traditionally responsible for ensuring the welfare of their citizens, however since 1945, more and more governments have become members of International Institutions, such as the United Nations and the European Union, through which they agree to stick to International guidelines on issues such as citizenship and human rights. In this way, global political ideals restrict the freedom of governments to shape domestic social policy. ‘

Anthony Giddens (2009) notes the following features of Political Globalisation

The collapse of Communism in the 1990s meant the end of the divided ‘cold war’ world, and now these ex-communist countries are themselves democracies and integrated into the global economy.

The growth of international and regional mechanisms of government such as the United Nations and European Union – governments of Nation States are increasingly restricted by international directives and laws stemming from these international bodies.

International Non-Governmental organisations such as OXFAM or Greenpeace operate in dozens of countries, and members tend to have an international outlook.

What is Economic Globalisation?

Economic Globalisation involves the global expansion of international capitalism, free markets and the increase in international trade, a process which has accelerated since the 1950s.

Nearly every country on earth now imports and exports more from and to other countries than it did immediately after World War Two, and even ex-communist countries are now part of the global capitalist economy.

Britain for example imports around 60% of its food, with only 40% of the food supply being grown in Britain, and if you take a look around any class room, or any living room, and you will probably find that the majority of products were imported from somewhere else.

This post focuses on four key aspects of economic globalisation: global supply chains, the growth of Transnational Corporations, and the increasing importance of the post modern, weightless economy.

This post has been written primarily for students studying the Global Development option for A-level sociology.

The emergence of global Commodity chains

Manufacturing is increasingly globalised as there are more worldwide networks extending from the raw material to the final consumer. The least profitable aspects of production – actually making physical products, tend to be done in poorer, peripheral countries, whereas the more profitable aspects, related to branding and marketing, tend to be done in the richer, developed, core countries.

The role of Transnational Corporations (TNCs) is particularly important

TNC logos

TNCs are companies that produce goods in more than one country, and they are oriented to global markets and global products, many are household names such as McDonald’s, Coca Cola and Nike. The biggest TNCs have annual revenues which are greater than the economic output of middle-income countries. Apple, for example, generates more income than Finland does every year, and many oil companies such as Shell and Exxon-Mobile generate revenue several times that of the poorer countries they extract from.

The global economy is Post Industrial

The global economy is increasingly ‘weightless’ (Quah 1999) – products are much more likely to be information based/ electronic, such as computer software, films and music or information services rather than actual tangible, physical goods such as food, clothing or cars.

The Call Centre is a common ‘post industrial’ work setting, taking over from the ‘factory’ in industrial society. The call centre is ‘instantaneously global – connecting workers immediately to clients, via IT.

The electronic economy underpins globalisation

Banks, corporations, fund managers and individuals are able to shift huge funds across boarders instantaneously at the click of a mouse. Transfers of vast amounts of capital can trigger economic crises.

global electronic economy

Related Posts

Cultural Globalisation

Food, tourism, the media, sport, are all examples of cultural globalisation

Cultural globalisation refers to the rapid movement of ideas, attitudes, meanings, values and cultural products across national borders.

The process of cultural globalisation is a dynamic one which implies the emergence of a global culture which influences and possibly transcends local cultures and shapes people’s values, tastes and everyday activities where ever in the world they may be.

Some easy examples of global culture include the emergence of global sporting events such as the Olympics and the World Cup, and the globalisation of food through international companies such as Mcdonalds and CocaCola.

Global culture may be transmitted and reinforced by global communications systems such as the internet, the growth of global popular culture, increasingly global consumption patterns, and increased tourism and migration.

Global institutions such as Transnational Corporations and the United Nations may also play a role in spreading global culture.

This post considers some of the main drivers of cultural globalisation before looking at two contemporary events: the Coronavirus Pandemic and the 2020 American Election and considering whether they can be regarded as being part of cultural globalisation in any way.

Examples of cultural globalisation

Any process which involves an increasing movement of people or ideas across the world can be regarded as an example of cultural globalisation including:

  • Increasingly global consumption patterns: where people around the world consume similar products in similar ways, such as with the rise of global shopping malls, fashions and food.
  • Global events: more counties taking part in global sporting events such as the Olympics and the World Cup, and more people watching and travelling to these events.
  • The growth of global popular culture: more people accessing media products through Netflix for example.
  • Increasing migration: increasing numbers of people choose or are forced to permanently migrate from one country to another.
  • A rising global consciousness: this might be a sense of us living as a ‘global village’ or a sense of more uncertainty emerging with ‘detraditionalisation’ and a ‘global risk consciousness’.
  • Global institutions and global values? The United Nations Declaration of Human Rights could possibly be the starting point for a new set of global values.

Converging Global Consumption Patterns

Today you can go to pretty much any major city in the world and share in a similar ‘consumption experience’. Also, more and more people in Asia and South-America are coming to enjoy high-consumption lifestyles like in the West – car ownership and tourism are both on the increase globally for example. Central to this is the growth of similar styles of shopping malls, and leisure parks which provide a homogeneous cultural experience in different regions across the world.

globalisation consumerism

Food

The globalisation of food is one of the most obvious examples of cultural globalisation – food consumption is an important aspect of culture and most societies around the world have diets that are unique to them, however the cultural globalisation of food has been promoted by fast food giants such as McDonald’s, Coca-Cola and Starbucks. The spread of these global food corporations has arguably led to the decline of local diets and eating traditions.

cultural globalisation

Sport

The Globalisation of sport  is another fairly obvious example of cultural globalisation – think of all the international sporting events that take place – most notably the World Cup and The Olympics, and Formula 1, which bind millions together in a shared, truly global, ‘leisure experience’.

Migration

Migration is an important aspect of cultural globalisation, and in this sense, this process has been going on for several centuries, with languages, religious beliefs, and values being spread by military conquest, missionary work, and trade. However, in the last 30 years, the process of cultural globalisation has dramatically intensified due technological advances in both transportation and communications technology.

The Global Village/ Global Consciousness

Individuals and families are now more directly plugged into news from the outside world – some of the most gripping events of the past decade have unfolded in real time in front of a global audience. According to Giddens this means that more and more people have a more ‘global outlook’ and increasingly identify with a global audience – for example, television reporting of natural disasters in developing countries result in people in wealthier countries donating money to charities such as Oxfam to assist with relief efforts.

Giddens developed the concept of ‘Cosmopolitanism’ to describe this process of an emerging global identity.

A criticism of Giddens is that some people perceive increasing globalisation as a threat to their ways of life and retreat into Fundamentalism and/ or Nationalism as a defensive response, suggesting that Globalisation could go into reverse…

Detraditionalisation

In his classic 1999 text, Runaway World, Anthony Giddens argues that one consequence of globalisation is detraditionalisation – where people question their traditional beliefs about religion, marriage, and gender roles and so on. He uses the concept of ‘detraditionalisation’ rather than ‘decline of tradition’ to reflect the fact that in many cases people continue with their traditional ways of life, rather than actually changing them, but the very fact that they are now actively questioning aspects of their lives means cultures are much less stable and less predictable than before globalisation, because more people are aware of the fact that there are alternative ways of doing things and that they can change traditions if they want to.

The above processes are related to growth of urbanisation, especially the growth of global cities which have highly educated, politically engaged middle classes.

Global Risks/ Global Risk Consciousness

Ulrich Beck (1992) argues that a fundamental feature of globalisation is the development of a global risk consciousness, which emerges due to shared global problems which threaten people in multiple countries – examples include the threat of terrorism, international nuclear war, the threat of global pandemics, the rise of organised crime funded primarily through international drug trafficking, and the threat of planetary melt-down due to global warming.

On the downside, the constant media focus on such global problems has led to a widespread culture of fear and increasing anxiety across the globe, which has arguably contributed to things such as Paranoid Parenting and Brexit, but on the plus side, new global international movements and agencies have emerged through which people come together across borders to tackle such problems.

disneyfication

Coronavirus and global consciousness?

It’s debatable whether Coronavirus has fostered an increasing sense of cultural globalisation – while in one sense the virus doesn’t discriminate across cultures, and many countries are working in similar ways to combat the virus (lockdowns, facemasks), it’s difficult to argue that the closing down of borders and the restriction of international travel fosters globalisation!

And people seemed to have turned to the national governments, their nation states, to guide them through the pandemic, which hardly seems like a ‘global response’…>?

Having said that Nation States have been taking guidance from the World Health Organisation, a global institution, and Bill Gates seems to be a leading proponent of vaccinating our way out of this crisis, which has to be done on a global scale for it to be effective, so there is an aspect of the global to the way we are managing this crisis!

The 2020 American Election: A Global Event?

Another recent event which shows how ambiguous cultural globalisation can be is the reaction to the 2020 United States general election – while this is a national election, it certainly was a global event, watched by hundreds of millions of people the world over, so it was a global event.

However, judging by the mixed reactions, we can hardly call this evidence of a unified consciousness – there’s a lot of division amongst world leaders over the result.

Signposting

This post has primarily been written for sociology students studying the Global Development module, a second year option within A-level sociology.

Cultural Globalisation is one type of globalisation, and students may like some of these other posts below:

Globalisation – Key Concepts and Definitions

Factors Contributing to Globalisation

What is Economic Globalisation?

What is Political Globalisation? It’s

Sources used to write this post:

Chapman et al (2016?)* Sociology AQA Year 2.

Giddens (2009) Sociology.

*No publication date provided in text!?!?@”?!

Factors Contributing to Globalisation

An introduction to the concept of globalisation looking at cultural, economic, political and technological aspects.

There are four main Factors contributing to Globalisation:

  • information technology
  • economic factors
  • cultural factors
  • political changes.

‘Globalisation refers to the fact that we all increasingly live in one world, so that individuals, groups and nations become ever more interdependent.’ (Giddens, Sociology, 2009)

Globalisation in this sense has been occurring over a very long period of human history, but the sheer pace and intensity of it has increased in the last 40 years or so.

Globalisation

The rise of information and communications technology

  • The move from telephonic communication to cable and satellite digital communication have resulted in increasing information flows
  • Time-space compression – people in faraway places feel closer together as they can communicate instantaneously.
  • Individuals and families are more directly plugged into news from the outside world – some of the most gripping events of the past decade have unfolded in real time in front of a global audience.
  • Some individuals identify being more ‘cosmopolitanism’ as a result and increasingly identify with a global audience; others perceive increasing globalisation as a threat to their ways of life and retreat into Fundamentalism and/ or Nationalism as a defensive response.

Cultural Factors

  • The emergence of global sporting events such as The Olympics , Formula 1 and Football all bring people together across boarders.
  • Music, film, and celebrity culture more generally often draw audiences from several different countries.
  • Global consumption patterns have become increasingly similar in recent decades, with the rise of shopping malls and online shopping.
  • International migration is a key aspect of cultural globalisation – the more people move around the globe, the more global connections there tend to be.
  • There is an emerging global risk consciousness – the sense that we are all at threat from global problems such as the Environmental Crisis, Terrorism and more recently Coronavirus, and that we all need to work together (even if that means staying apart?) to combat such problems.

Manchester United Football club are a good example of how global football is – despite being based in one of the largest cities in England, fewer than half the players are from England, the rest being from a diverse array of countries in Europe, Africa and Latin America, and the UK only ranks 10th on Facebook for the number of Man United fans – there are more fans in Egypt and Indonesia than there are in the UK, for example! (source.)

Economic factors

  • The global economy is Post Industrial – as a result it is increasingly ‘weightless’ (Quah 1999) – products are much more likely to be information based/ electronic, such as computer software, films and music or information services rather than actual tangible, physical goods such as food, clothing or cars.
  • The role of Transnational Corporations (TNCs) is particularly important. These are companies that produce goods in more than one country, and they are oriented to global markets and global products.
  • Global Commodity chains – manufacturing is increasingly globalised as there are more worldwide networks extending from the raw material to the final consumer. The least profitable aspects of production – actually making physical products, tend to be done in poorer, peripheral countries, whereas the more profitable aspects, related to branding and marketing, tend to be done in the richer, developed, core countries.
  • Production is much more flexible than in the past – companies are much more likely to hire people on short term contracts and move around the globe seeking cheaper labour costs, as a response to increased global economic competition.
  • The electronic economy underpins globalisation – Banks, corporations, fund managers and individuals are able to shift huge funds across boarders instantaneously at the click of a mouse. Transfers of vast amounts of capital can trigger economic crises.

Political changes

  • The collapse of Communism in the 1990s meant the end of the divided ‘cold war’ world, and now these ex-communist countries are themselves democracies and integrated into the global economy.
  • The growth of international and regional mechanisms of government such as the United Nations and European Union – governments of Nation States are increasingly restricted by international directives and laws stemming from these international bodies.
  • International Non-Governmental organisations such as OXFAM or Greenpeace, operate in dozens of countries, and members tend to have an international outlook.
Signposting and Related Posts 

This post has been written primarily for A-level sociology students studying the Global Development module, and is intended as part of an introduction to the concept of Globalisation.

What is Cultural Globalisation?

What is Economic Globalisation?

What is Political Globalisation?

Globalisation Key Concepts – Test Yourself Quizlet!

Sources

The above account of factors contributing to globalisation is taken from Giddens’ Sociology, edition 6, 2009.

(It seems like quite a useful framework, which I’ll add to when I get a chance!)

How Does Globalisation Impact Family Life?

Globalisation is a key concept within A-level sociology, and students may be asked to consider how it affects family life.

One possible question which may come up on the families and households exam paper is:

Outline and Explain two ways in which globalisation may impact family life in the UK (10)

A good strategy to answer this question is to pick two different aspects of globalisation and discuss how these influence different aspects of family life. For more specific advice on how to answer these see ‘10 mark questions‘.

For example I would choose economic globalisation and migration as my two aspects of globalisation. Then I would discuss how these lead to a variety of changes to family life.

It is generally good advice to avoid overlap between your two points.

This post is written as a summary answer to the above exam question. For a more in-depth look at this topic see: Globalisation and Family Life.

Two ways in which globalisation may impact family life

One aspect of globalization is increased immigration to the UK. This has affected family life in the following ways:

  • There are more ethnically diverse families as British born people form relationships and families with people originally from other countries.
  • This means there are more families stretched across borders. This could mean more travel abroad to maintain family connections, for those who can afford it.
  • There are more people sending money to other countries if their partners have not come to Britain with them.
  • Immigrants have higher birth rates so this has positively affected the dependency ratio.
  • One downside of the above may mean increased pressure on public services.
  • Increased immigration doesn’t necessarily mean increased integration. Migrant families may remain relatively isolated in their own communities.
  • For very wealthy families, some have taken advantage of cheap migrant labour to employ cleaners and child carers.
  • In extreme cases this is related to an increase in modern slavery, hidden in the domestic sphere.

Another aspect of globalisation is a more globalised economy.

  • In general this has resulted in economic growth in the UK. This is correlated with lower birth rates and a smaller family size.
  • Recently increased amounts of university students from abroad means fewer places for British children. Some choose not to go to university, which could increase the number of households with young adults.
  • There has been a shift in manufacturing abroad. This means a decline in traditional male jobs, more equality between men and women in relationships (link to topic 5)
  • There are more financial crises (‘credit crunch’) – more divorce/ family instability (link to topic 2).

Signposting

This material is mainly relevant to the families and households module.

For more information on exam advice for the AQA’s A-level sociology please see my page on essays and exams.

To return to the homepage – revisesociology.com

Outline and Explain Two Theoretical Problems of Using Social Surveys in Social Research

Firstly, social surveys suffer from the imposition problem, closed questions limits what respondents can say Interpretivists argue respondents have diverse motives and it is unlikely that researchers will think up every possible relevant question and every possible, response, thus questionnaires will lack validity.

This is especially true for more complex topics such as religions belief – ticking the ‘Christian’ box can mean many different things to many different people, for example.

Interpretivists thus say that surveys are socially constructed—they don’t reflect reality, but the interests of researchers

However, this is easily rectified by including a section at the end of questionnaires in which respondents can write their explanations.

Secondly, self-completion surveys can also suffer from poor representativeness…

Postal questionnaires can suffer from a low response rate, and samples might be self-selecting— due to the illiterate or people who might be ashamed/ scared to return questionnaires on sensitive topics.

Also, you can’t check who has filled them in, so surveys may actually misrepresent the target population.

However, it is possible to rectify this with incentives and booster samples.

The above is a suggested response to a possible 10 mark ‘pure methods’ question which might come up on either paper 1 or 3 of the AQA’s A Level Sociology Papers. It follows the basic formula – make a point, develop it twice, and then evaluate it (which to my mind seems to work well for ‘pure methods’ 10 mark questions. 

Theory and Methods A Level Sociology Revision Bundle 

If you like this sort of thing, then you might like my Theory and Methods Revision Bundle – specifically designed to get students through the theory and methods sections of  A level sociology papers 1 and 3.

Contents include:

  • 74 pages of revision notes
  • 15 mind maps on various topics within theory and methods
  • Five theory and methods essays
  • ‘How to write methods in context essays’.

Outline and Explain Two Practical Advantages of Using Social Surveys in Social Research (10)

It’s possible that a 10 mark question on A level sociology papers 1 or 3 could simply ask you about a ‘pure’ research method, as with the example above.

You might like to review the fuller material on social surveys first before looking at the answer below!

This post suggests a strategy for how to answer such possible questions and provides one exemplar answer, which I think would get full marks in the exam….

Strategy 

  • Make two, distinct points—as different from each other as possible!
  • For each of the points, explain, develop it twice, and (if it flows) do a linked evaluation.
  • It’s good practice to link to Positivism and Interpretivism and use examples.

Exemplar Answer

Firstly, surveys are a quick and cheap means of gathering data from large numbers of people, across wide areas, because, once sent out, millions of people could potentially fill them at the same time.

They are especially quick/ efficient if put online because computers can analyse pre-coded answers and quantify/ compare the data instantaneously.

They also make it easier to gain government funding because you can generalise from large data sets and thus use to inform social policy—the census, for example, allows the government to plan for school places in the future.

However, Interpretivists would argue you never get in-depth/ valid data with this method, and so predictions can be flawed—the polls on Brexit didn’t tell us what people really thought about this issue!

Secondly, you don’t need ‘people skills’ to use social surveys, thus anyone can use them to do research.

This is because they can be written in advance, and put on-line or sent by post, and thus sociologist’s personal involvement with respondents can be kept to a minimum.

This also means that busy people with family commitments can easily use social surveys.

However, Interpretivists and Feminist argue this wouldn’t be an advantage for all topics—some areas are so sensitive they require personal contact, such as domestic abuse.

Theory and Methods A Level Sociology Revision Bundle 

If you like this sort of thing, then you might like my Theory and Methods Revision Bundle – specifically designed to get students through the theory and methods sections of  A level sociology papers 1 and 3.

Contents include:

  • 74 pages of revision notes
  • 15 mind maps on various topics within theory and methods
  • Five theory and methods essays
  • ‘How to write methods in context essays’.

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

How I Would’ve Answered Yesterday’s AS Sociology Exam Paper (7191/1 – Education)

A few thoughts on how the AQA’s 7191 (1) Education AS exam from May 2017 –

If any teacher finds this annoying because they like to keep these papers back for next year’s mock exam, forget it –

  • Any student can find out the questions on social media, very easily
  • The AQA seems to be publishing last years’ exam on their public access web site earlier, rather than keeping them secure.

You can easily just make up yr own exam papers and mark schemes using adobe editor. Also, I’m not giving the exact questions (well, with the exception of Q01) 

Question 01 – Define term hidden curriculum

Boom! Easy starter – in my 13 key concepts for the sociology of education

The norms and values taught at school which are not written down as part of the formal curriculum – for example the norm of respecting authority and being punctual.

Question 02 – Selection policies and social class

Covered here

Some oversubscribed schools select by catchment area – pupils have to live in a house within a certain distance from the school to stand a chance of getting in – this has resulted in covert selection by mortgage – house prices near the good schools increase and so poorer, working class families cannot afford to move into those areas, thus they have no real choice of getting into the best schools.

Question 03 – Three ways in which school mirrors capitalism

Classic Marxist correspondence theory: see here for three ways, explain school – work…

  • hierarchy
  • authority
  • motivation by external rewards
  • even the reproduction of class inequality 

Question 04 – Education policy and ethnic minorities’ experience of education 

Looks awful, but I’m assuming the policies don’t have to be about ethnicity in particular.

Policy 1 – Tony Sewell’s Generating Genius Programme – linked to positive aspirations for black boys, pro-school subcultures. 

Policy 2Banding and streaming – linked to institutional racism, Steve Strand, Gilborn and Youdell, educational triage. 

Question 05 – In school factors, the gender gap and educational achievement 

Simple really – It’s covered here and you could’ve bolstered it with this stuff

  • Point 1 – teacher labelling and evaluations 
  • Point 2 – Feminisation of teaching and evaluations
  • Point 3 – Subcultures – laddish ones obviously, also hyper-feminine and evaluations
  • Point 4 – Gender identities – I’d use sexual harassment of girls as an evaluation
  • Overall evaluations using out-of school factors and changing gender roles linked to in-school factors, probably concluding that schools really don’t change very much! 

Question 06 – Questionnaires and class differences in educational achievement.

It’s quite similar to this question here

My answer would have focused on the strengths of the method for making comparisons, and the ease of measuring material deprivation compared to the problems of measuring things like cultural deprivation and cultural capital and gaining access to working class parents. 

I would’ve covered all of Theoretical, ethical and practical of course. 

Interestingly the item didn’t give you very much….

You may have noticed that if you follow this blog, you can pretty much game the sociology exams just by memorizing the content. Personally I’ve no problem with this, being good at exams and being able to think sociologically are two different things, and one of these is a useful life-skill, the other isn’t!

Game on!

AQA Exam Paper 7191 (2): Research Methods with Families and Households

An overview of the AS Sociology paper 7191 (2), and a few quick hints and tips on how to answer each of the questions…

NB – Technically this paper is research methods with topics in sociology, but nearly everyone does the families and households topic. If you don’t do that topic, choose the topic you have studied!

You will be given a total of 90 minutes to answer this paper and is out of a total of 60 marks (this means 1.5 minutes per mark). There are a total of 6 questions, 5 on ‘pure education’ and 1 on ‘methods in context’.

For paper 2, you get a booklet with the questions, and then a separate booklet in which to write your answers. There are two sections – section A on research methods has 2 questions – one four mark outline question and one 16 mark essay question. Section B2 will be on families and households –

The general structure of the paper is as follows:

Section A

  • QO1: Outline two advantages/ limitations/ problems of using a research methods (4 marks )*
  • Q02:  Evaluate the strengths/ limitations of a research method (16 marks)*

Section B (Families and Households Option)

  • Question 08: Define the term… (2 marks)
  • Question 09: Using one example, briefly explain something (2 marks)
  • Question 10: Outline three ways/ factors/ criticisms (6 marks)
  • Question 11: Outline and explain two ways/ reasons/ criticisms (10 marks)
  • Question 12:  Applying material from Item B and your knowledge evaluate something to do with the family (20 marks)

General hints and tips

Question 1 and Question 10: Outline 2/3 reasons –  these are 2/3 lots of ‘1+1’ – make sure you explain HOW each point has an effect, or is affected by something. For example, if the question asks you to outline two practical problems with doing participant observation – state a problem and explain why it’s a problem!

Question 16: For any pure methods essay – follow the TPEN plan – evaluate using practical, ethical, theoretical factors, and do nature of topic. Top and tail with positivism vs interpretivism. Use examples to illustrate where you can!

Question 08: Define the concept and give an example. Even though it says define, it’s good practice to do this and then back it up with an example to show you understand it. NB – this could be any concept within families and households – sometimes they’re obscure, sometimes they’re easier – if it looks unfamiliar, don’t worry about it and just move onto the next questions.

Question 09: Explain something using an example – you need to do two things here – think of it as a ‘1+1’ mark question.

Question 11: It’s good practice to try and pick 2 very different answers – from different parts of the education module. Explain and develop using perspectives/ research evidence.

Question 12: You should be familiar with the essay structure – Intro – then PEEC – Overall evaluations, then conclusion. 4 points all internally evaluated. If in doubt, chuck the perspectives at it.

Finally, if it all goes really pear-shaped, have a look at my alternative careers guidance – you don’t even need A levels to pursue these options!

*these are typical questions which focus on a method, you might be asked about other things, such as sample, or practical, ethical, or theoretical problems in general, for example!