Tag: essay

Evaluate the pluralist view of the ownership and control of the media.

Read Item N below and answer the question that follows.

pluralism essay question.PNG

Applying material from Item N and your knowledge, evaluate the pluralist view of the ownership and control of the media.

Commentary on the Question

This seems to be a standard question, with the item picking up on the fact that the media are democratic and provide equality of opportunity and that they respond to the needs of the audience.

 Answer (plan)

Intro – outline Pluralism

  • content of the media broadly reflects the diverse range of opinions found in any democratic society.
  • audiences control media content as media professionals and owners produce what audiences demand because they are motivated primarily by profit.
  • media companies are in competition and if a media company doesn’t produce what audiences want, another company will and will attract more viewers.
  • In this essay I will evaluate the two points brought up in the item, using Marxist theories to develop my evaluation points.

Media are part of the democratic process

  • media are an important part of the democratic process: give different interest groups the opportunity to put forward their views (in item!)
  • Elections/ Brexit – media play a crucial role. no way that parties can get their views across to millions of voters without access to the Media.
  • The news has commentators from different political parties, suggesting that the people are well represented.
  • Social media the above seems especially true –political leaders and parties use Twitter and other outlets to voice their opinions, Donald Trump/ Momentum.
  • However, Marxists argue that there is a subtle bias in news broadcasting which favours right wing views because media owners and journalists are themselves part of the elite.
  • Gatekeeping used to keep issues damaging to the right out of the news agenda
  • Agenda setting skews debates in favour of right-wing arguments – the Green Party gets hardly any air time compared to the Brexit Party.
  • Fiona Bruce is notorious – sides with the right and is barely able to hide her sneering contempt for those on the left (e.g. Dianne Abbot). Perpetuates Dominant Ideology.
  • Some radical thinkers have been censored by social media platforms – Tommy Robinson is one example of this.
  • Advertising in political campaigns costs money – so the more money a party can spend, the more of a voice it has – the Trump campaign spent a fortune on the last election for example. Supports the Instrumentalist Marxist view that those with money control media content.
  • Social media encourages ‘echo chambers’ – while most groups are free to express themselves, they are only ever preaching to the converted – Labour’s views probably won’t be reaching Brexit voters, for example. Thus the media isn’t quite working democratically – it isn’t encouraging debate.

Media respond to the demands of the audience

  • Advertising is used effectively in the media by a range of companies to advertise their products and provide people with information about what they want.
  • Amazon, with its cheap products and peer reviews of products provide people with access to consumer goods and useful information more efficiently than ever.
  • However, from a Marxist point of view, the internet is primarily about advertising, and it is used by companies such as Facebook to manipulate people into buying things they wouldn’t otherwise – creating false needs.
  • This isn’t helped by concentration of ownership – especially vertical integration and lateral explanation
  • The fact that advertising revenue accounts for so much profit of the big four tech companies suggest more support for Marxist theories rather than pluralism –most people do not advertise anything online.
  • Advertising even influences what search results one gets on Google – suggesting that the answer to any question you ask is influenced by money.

Conclusion

In conclusion, while there is some support for the fact that New Media do allow more freedom of expression than traditional media, so there is some support for Pluralism, the content of such media does appear to be biased and limited in subtle ways, so that in terms of what we actually see, there isn’t equality of opportunity, and we are not provided with the information we want or need, so I reject the Pluralist view of the media, it remains too simplistic!

Evaluate the view that the media have a direct and immediate effect on their audiences [20 marks]

This is an example of a 20 mark essay question written for the AQA’s A-level sociology paper 2, Topics in Sociology, Media option.

Read Item N below and answer the question that follows.

evaluate view media direct effect audience.PNG

Applying material from Item N and your knowledge, evaluate the view that the media have a direct and immediate effect on their audiences [20 marks]

Commentary on the question

 A classic essay, asking you to evaluate the Hypodermic Syringe Model, picking up on the relationship between violence and the media as an example.

Answer

Introduction – hypodermic syringe model key points

  • the media can have a direct and immediate effect on the audience, audience as a ‘homogeneous mass’ (all the same), and as passive
  • content creators can manipulate vulnerable audiences
  • associated with neo-Marxists Theodor Adorno and Max Horkheimer (A and H), from the the 1940s
  • They noted that there were similarities between the ‘propaganda industry’ in Nazi Germany’ and what they called the ‘Culture Industry’ in the United States.
  • A and H saw popular culture in the USA was like a factory producing standardized content which was used to manipulate a passive mass audience. The point was to creat false psychological needs and keeping capitalism going.
  • Pluralists and postmodernists would criticise the above theory – people have diverse needs which they actively meet through media, and especially New Media.

 

Other evidence that media messages can have a direct and immediate effect on audiences:

  • Orson Welles’ radio adaptation of ‘War of the Worlds‘ in 1938.
  • However, people are more media literate now.
  • The ‘beauty myth’, especially the representations of size zero as normal, have encouraged an increase in eating disorders.
  • However, evidence of women (and men) resisting such messages – and setting up ad campaigns which celebrate diverse body shapes criticises this.
  • Campaigns behind Trump and Brexit used sophisticated targeted advertising to nudge voters into voting for Trump and Brexit, suggesting the media can have a very direct and immediate effect on specific populations.
  • However, it is not quite accurate to say this is the media having a direct and immediate effect –they don’t even bother targeting the people who they know will make ‘oppositional readings’ – thus the two-step flow and reception analysis models may be more applicable.

Violence (in item)

  • There is some evidence that media violence can ‘cause’ people to be more violence in real-life…
  • The Bandura ‘Bobo Doll’ experiment
  • However, this experiment was carried out in such an artificial environment, it tells us little about how violence happens in real life.
  • A more nuanced version is ‘desensitisation’

Conclusion

  • There are enough criticisms which can be made of the Hypodermic syringe model to say that it is mostly invalid today….
  • model may have been true in the 1940s when the media was relatively new and audiences less literate, but in today’s new media age, audiences are more likely to criticise what they see rather than just believing it, and to check what they see with other sources.
  • Audiences are also clearly more diverse, active, and USE media for their own devices rather than the other way around.
  • Finally, it is just too simplistic a theory to explain social problems – societal violence has many causes, and it’s all too easy to scapegoat the media
  • This model explains little about how the media and audiences are interrelated in a complex postmodern age.

 

 

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Evaluate the personal life perspective on the family(20)

This is a possible question which could come up in the AQA’s Paper 2, families and households topic. This post is just a few thoughts on how I’d go about answering it.

I think this would be a fair question given that this is quite a difficult topic for students, and quite limited in what you can say for 20 marks.

You might like to review the material on the Personal Life Perspective in more depth before reading what’s below, or before having a go at the question yourself, before looking at the suggestions below!

Item

The Personal Life Perspective argues that sociologists should study family life from the perspectives of individuals, and focus on what families mean to them. If people believe that pets and dead relatives are part of their family, the sociologists should accept this.

This is very different from traditional sociological perspectives such as Functionalism and Marxism, which tended to study the nuclear family and look at what functions this performed for the individual and society.

Using the item and your own knowledge, Evaluate the personal life perspective on the family 

Decode/ discussion

What you need to do here is firstly show your knowledge of the Personal Life Perspective, and contrast this to Functionalism and Marxism. You can gain evaluation marks by showing how the PLP perspective criticise these older perspectives. Further analysis marks can be picked up by discussing how the former perspectives may have been relevant to a modernist society, but the PLP perspective is probably a better way of analysing the family in a post-modern society.

Finally, to criticise the PLP perspective, you could use Gidden’s Late Modernist theory. Although this would be a stretch for many students, especially as many of the text books don’t even recognise that Giddens is a Late Modernist.

Suggested Points

  • The PLP perspective emerged in the 1990s and criticised the Functionalist and Marxist view that the nuclear family should be the primary unit of analysis.
  • PLP argues that people still form meaningful relationships, but their Identity or sense of belonging increasingly comes from other people NOT traditionally regarded as part of a ‘normal family’ – for example pets, friends and dead relatives may all be seen as important to individuals.
  • The PLP perspective makes sense today because the nuclear family has declined in significance as fewer people get married, fewer people have kids, and more and more people spend time living alone, yet people still form meaningful relationships with each other.
  • The PLP perspective suggests we look at the family from the individual’s point of view, taking their definition – which can be useful, because if we do so we find that many people regard ‘non-nuclear’ family members as more important to them than their immediate traditional family.
  • This is is useful because it means we should not over-estimate the stability of the traditional nuclear family, and not be surprised by high rates of family break-down.
  • PLP also seems to fit in with interactionism – looking at the family from the ground up, rather than the top down, a strength of this is that we see that there are still families in the UK, nearly everyone has one, but just not in the standard ‘nuclear family’ sense of the word.
  • The PLP perspective is thus useful in criticising the New Right – people may not be in nuclear families, or married, but they are capable of establishing their own alternative families.
  • PLP is also useful to criticise Functionalism and Marxism – if families are different to the nuclear family, theories which focus on the role of the nuclear family must be wrong.
  • This is also a useful way of exploring family diversity, revealing family diversity if you like, and it’s appropriate when life-courses are diverse and complex.
  • The PLP perspective did, however suggest that people are not entirely free to construct their own families, they are constrained in their ability to do so by society and their immediate culture.
  • Finally, a weakness of PLP is that it ends up being a bit wishy-washy, descriptive rather than analytical, one is kind of left shrugging one’s shoulders wondering what the point of it is!

Evaluate the view that the growth of family diversity has led to a decline in the nuclear family (20)

An example of a top band answer (17/20) to a possible question on the AQA’s 7192/2 topics in sociology paper (families option, section A)

This is an example of a 17/20 top band answer to the above question, as marked by the AQA.

In the pictures below, I’ve highlighted all of the candidate’s evaluations in red to show you the balance of knowledge and evaluation required to get into the top mark band!

This is also a good example of a borderline Band 4-Band 5 answer… it just wants a little more evaluation to go up even higher.

The mark scheme (top two bands)

Sociology essay mark scheme

Student’s Response (concepts highlighted in blue, evaluation in burnt orange)

NB It’s the same response all the way through, I’ve just repeated the title on the two pages!

 

Family diversity essay 2018

A-level sociology essay full marks

 

KT’s commentary

This is a bit of a bizarre essay, but this is a good example of how to answer it.

Without the final paragraph it would be floundering down in the middle mark band!

 

Source 

AQA specimen material 2016

Applying material from Item B and your knowledge, evaluate sociological explanations of the role of education in transmitting ideas and values.

How to top mark band in a 30 mark education essay, A-level sociology, AQA.

Below is an example of a 30 mark essay question which achieved 28/30.

It’s an interesting example of a question which looks like its asking you to evaluate a specific aspect of the Functionalist perspective on education. However, if you look more closely at the item, you’ll need to do this by drawing on Feminism and Postmodernism to evaluate!

The example is taken from the 2017 Education with Theory and Methods Paper (paper and mark schemes available from the AQA 0website) and the specific question is as follows:

The Question with Item 

A-level-sociology-30-mark-question-item

Mark Scheme (Top Band Only)

A-level-sociology-mark-scheme-30-mark-question-top-band.png

Student Response (paraphrased by KT)

Item B states that education plays a role in socialisation. Feminists argue that education reinforces hegemonic masculinity. However, other sociologists such as Functionalists argue that education transmits shared values and post-modernists for example argue that education is diverse and transmits a range of values.

Feminists suggest that education transmits patriarchal ideology. Radical Feminists would say that male teachers/ pupils behave in ways that reinforce hegemonic masculinity. For example, male teachers tell boys off for ‘behaving like girls’ and they also ‘rescue’ female teachers when they are disciplining students. Radical feminists say that this makes females feel inferior to males and therefor means that the role of education is to reinforce the idea that males are the dominant gender. However, a specific evaluation is that the male teachers may rescue female teachers because they are in a more authoritative position. Additionally, post-modernists would disagree with feminists and argue that education is no longer based on inequality, but based on diversity.

Functionalists suggest that education transmits shared values. Durkheim argues that the role of education is to create social solidarity and value consensus. He argues that education achieves this via assemblies, teaching a common history (giving a sense of national identity and bring people together) and teaching core values such as respect which bring social order. Parsons agrees and argues that education is the focal socialising agency and ‘Parsons bridge implies that education takes people from particularistic values of the family/ home to universalistic values of the work place. The New right agree with functionalists that the role of education is to transmit shared values. However, Marxists disagree with functionalists and argue that the socialisation aspect of the role of education is not to create value consensus but that education is uses as an ideological state apparatus, to transmit ruling class ideology.

Marxists suggest that the role of education is to ‘brainwash’ the working class. Althusser argues that education is an ideological state apparatus that transmits ruling class ideology in order to legitimse the inequality caused by the capitalist class. Bowles and Gintis argue that there is a ‘hidden curriculum’ that socialises the working class into obedient workers in order to benefit capitalism. For example, they are taught that being punished for minor issues is acceptable and the importance of punctuality and that they have to obey the people above them in the social hierarchy – e.g. teachers then boss. However, a specific problem of the hidden curriculum is that a study by Willis showed that students can see through the role of education and reject the hidden curriculum.

Bowles and Gintis also argued that there is a correspondence principle where school mirrors work. Similarities such as extrinsic satisfaction (only doing something for rewards, not because you enjoy it eg school to get GCSEs, work to get money) socialise working class pupils to not expect a rewarding job when they leave school and this benefits the capitalist class. As a result, Marxists argue that the role of education is to transmit ruling class ideology and benefit the bourgeoisie. However, functionalists and new right disagree and argue that values are shared to create a value consensus. They argue that marxism is wrong for basing it on conflict when it is really consensus.

Functionasts such as Parsons suggest that education is meritocratic. This means that pupils are taught that they need to work hard if they want to achieve. He argues that the education system is based on this which suggests people only fail if they do not try hard enough. However, Marxists such as Bordieu argue that education promotes middle class values which means working class students fail because their values are not wanted by the school – not because of meritocracy. Ball argued that meritocracy is a myth. However, new right agree and argue that it is down to the individual to work hard and achieve.

Perhaps the main strength of explaining the role of education in transmitting ideas/ values is the functionalist view that education is used to create shared values, because it can be applied to real life education because schools do have assemblies and promote core values. Perhaps the main weakness is the postmodern view because although education is more diverse, each school still has an ETHOS that has been developed by middle class individuals.

Post modernists argue that marxists, feminists and functionalists are out of date. Liberal feminists would argue that the role of education is no longer to reinforce hegemonic masculinity but that inequality/ patriarchy is improving.

Examiner Commentary 

Mark 28/30

Conceptually detailed and located within a broad theoretical framework. Sophisticated analysis and applied clearly to the question. Explicit evaluation throughout.

Did not score maximum as at times evaluation was not fully developed, e.g. postmodernism.

KT’s commentary

An obvious strength of this answer, in addition to the above is it’s clear use of the item!

They also use phrases, such as ‘a specific evaluation’ of this is….

This also shows you that you need good depth of knowledge of the basics of functionalism and Marxism, but you also need to evaluate them with specific comments and P/M to top mark band.

Source:

A-level
SOCIOLOGY
Feedback on the Examinations
Student responses and commentaries: Paper 1 7192/1 Education with Theory and Methods
Published: Autumn 2017

Assess the view that western models of education are not appropriate to developing countries (20)

Overview plan

  1. What are Western Models of Education?
  2. What are the arguments and evidence for western models being appropriate to developing countries?
  3. What are the arguments and evidence against/ what other models might be appropriate?
  4. Conclusion – when might Western models be appropriate/ when not?

This is a possible 20 mark essay which might come up on the AQA’s A-level sociology (7192/2) topics in sociology paper. Below is my extend plan. You might like to read this post on education and international development first, most of the material below is based on this.

Extended plan

1. What are Western Models of Education?

  • Free state education for all, funded by tax payer
  • Functions – apply Functionalism – crucial link to work and economy
  • Expensive, requires tax base, trained professionals
  • Industrial model/ factory model
  • National curriculums, standardised testing (downsides)

2. What are the arguments and evidence for western models being appropriate to developing countries?

  • Mainly modernisation theory – link to breaking traditional values
  • There is a correlation between education and economic growth.
  • Would anyone disagree with the idea that teaching kids to read/ keeping them out of work is a good idea? Near universal agreement.
  • Western companies are involved in running education systems in developing countries (linked to neoliberalism)

3. What are the arguments and evidence against western education being appropriate/ what other models might more appropriate?

  • Dependency theory argues western education is simply part of the colonial project – a ‘reward’ for the natives who obey the colonisers.
  • Western education focuses too much on Western history, it’s ethnocentric, and erases diverse voices (Galeano)
  • Bare Foot Education (people centred development) might be more appropriate – local education systems run by local people to meet local needs (focussing on agricultural technology, women’s empowerment for example).
  • Most obvious reasons ‘Western education’ might not work are due to numerous barriers to education – e.g. poorer countries cannot afford the teachers, rural populations are too dispersed.
  • Building on point d above, two of the biggest barriers are groups such as Boko Haram who prevent girls from getting an education.
  • Neoliberals and others suggest we can educate effectively in poor countries without the need for massive state sectors like in the west (through online learning, e.g. the hole in the wall experiment).

4. Conclusion – when might Western models be appropriate/ when not?

  • In principle the western idea of funding education for children for 11 years is hard to argue against
  • However, there are problems with many aspects of the western education system – top-down national curriculums for example, and the focus on too much testing, and the sheer expense.
  • Also, there are massive barriers to rolling out western style education systems in developing countries which would make massive state education difficult to maintain.
  • So in conclusion I’d say the most effective way to implement and improve education in poorer countries is to adopt some but not all aspects of western models – maybe having the state and aid money guarantee teacher training and reading programmes, combined with a more ground-up people centred development approach to make sure local people are included in shaping specific aspects of education to meet their local needs.

 

Evaluate the Functionalist View of the Role of Education in Society (30) #LONG VERSION

Essay practice for A-level sociology!

An A-level sociology essay written for the AQA’s 7192 (1) specification, exam paper 1. This is the long, ‘overkill’ version of the essay, written using the PEAC system (Point – Explain – Analyse – Criticise)

An obvious starting point before reading this essay would be to read my post on the Functionalist Perspective on Education.

NB – At time of posting, it’s half an essay, more to follow!

Introduction

Functionalism is a somewhat dated structural theory popular in 19th century France (Durkheim) and mid-20th century America (Parsons). Functionalist theorists adopted a ‘top-down’ approach to analysing the role which institutions, such as schools play in relation to other institutions, such as work, and generally believe that schools form an important part of a society’s structure. Functionalism is also a consensus theory: functionalists generally emphasise the positive functions which schools perform for individuals and society, arguing that schools tend to promote social harmony and social order, which they see as a good thing.

Below I will analyse and evaluate four specific ‘functions’ or roles which schools perform according to Functionalist theory, ultimately arguing that it obscures more than it enlightens our understanding of the role of education in society.

Education and Social Solidarity

POINT 1: According to Emile Durkheim (1890s), the founder of modern Functionalism, the first role of education was to create a sense of social solidarity which in turn promoted value consensus.

EXPLANATION: Social Solidarity is where the individual members of society feel themselves to be a part of a single ‘body’ or community and work together towards shared goals. According to Durkhiem schools achieved social solidarity through children learning subjects such as history and English which gave them a shared sense of national identity, which in turn promoted value consensus, or agreement on shared values at the societal level.

Analysis: Durkheim thought schools were one of the few institutions which could promote solidarity at a national level – he may have a point. It is difficult to imagine any other institution which governments could use to socialise individuals in to a sense of national identity.

Evaluation: To evaluate this point, there do seem to be examples of where schools attempt to promote a sense of social solidarity. Writing in the 1950s, Talcott Parsons pointed to how, in American schools, children pledge allegiance to the flag; while today British schools and colleges are obliged to promote ‘British Values’ (woohoo!)

However, it is debatable whether schools are successful in instilling a genuine sense of social solidarity into most, let alone all students. A minority of students are excluded from schools, and around 5% are persistent absentees – if students are not in mainstream education, then schools cannot promote a sense of belonging; while for those students who are at school, many are there ‘in body, but not necessarily in spirit. Finally there is the fact there is such a huge diversity of schools (faith schools, private schools, home education) that surely education is too fragmented and divided for it to promote true solidarity at the national level – to the extent that postmodernists suggested there is no such thing as a unified culture anymore.

Education teaches Skills for Work

POINT 2: A second function of education, again according to Durkhiem, is that schools teach individuals the specialist skills for work, which is crucial in a complex, modern industrial economy. (Schools thus have an important economic function).

Durkhiem argued that school was an efficient way of teaching individuals these diverse skills while at the same time teaching them to co-operate with each-other – schools thus instilled a sense of organic solidarity, or solidarity based on difference and interdependency, with school being one of the only institutions which could do both of these functions simultaneously within the context of a national economy.

The idea that schools have an economic function certainly seems to be true – basic literacy and numeracy are certainly important for any job today, and ever since the New Right, Vocational education has expanded, right up to the present day in the form of Modern Apprenticeships, and today. There is also a relationship between government expenditure on education and economic growth – more developed countries tend to have stronger economies.

However, it is debatable whether schools prepare children adequately for work – for example, there is a shortage of STEM graduates, and many doctors come to Britain from abroad, so maybe the education system today focuses on the wrong subjects, not the subjects the economy actually needs to grow effectively? There is also a Postmodern critique from Ken Robinson that suggests that ‘schools kill creativity’ – a system obsessed with standardised testing hardly prepares people to go into the creative industries or become entrepreneurs, both of which are growth areas in the current UK economy.

More to follow…!

Short version of this essay

  • Point – Simply state something Functionalists say about education
  • Explain – Explain what is meant by the ‘Function’ of education mentioned previously
  • Expand – this could mean giving examples, evidence, or explaining in more depth
  • Criticise – criticise with evidence against or limitations

(P1) Secondary Socialisation and Value consensus       

  • The teaching of norms and values after the family – leading to agreement around these norms and values
  • Formal Curriculum – Shared history/ Shared language/ Shared religion
  • Team sports – working together shared aim
  • Ethnocentric Curriculum
  • Sub cultures
  • More school types – more diversity, surely = less value consensus?

(P2) Teaching skills for work – economic function          

  • Diverse subjects,
  • Punctuality
  • Vocationalism and apprenticeships have expanded
  • Are apprenticeships useful?
  • Tea servers

(P3) Bridge between home and school  

  • School prepares us for the world outside the family – it acts like a society in miniature
  • Particularistic/ Universalistic Standards
  • Doesn’t apply to everyone – Home schooling

R(P4) Role Allocation  

  • Different qualifications sift people into appropriate jobs
  • Does this through exams – sifting and sorting
  • Meritocracy (since 1944)
  • Marxism – not meritocratic – myth of meritocracy,
  • Private schools
  • Feminism – gender stereotyping and subject choice

Evaluate using other perspectives –

  • Marxism – Agrees with Functionalists that school socialises us into shared values, but these values are the values benefit the ruling class (we get taught that inequality is natural and inevitable, we believe in the myth of meritocracy and so end up passively accepting society as it is.
  • Feminism – Functionalism ignores the gender divide in school
  • Interactionism – Argues Functionalism is too deterministic – it sees individuals as passive, but there is a lot more evidence that pupils are active and aren’t just moulded by the school system

Conclusion – You must point out that this perspective is too optimistic and overgeneralises!

Signposting

This essay plan is based on these class notes on the Functionalist perspective on education.

For more essays, please see my main post on exam advice, short answer questions and essays.

Please click here to return to the homepage – ReviseSociology.com

Evaluate the View that the Main Aim of the Family is to Meet the Needs of Capitalism (20)

Families marxism essay coverCapitalism is an economic system characterised by private ownership of means of production. The Marxist perspective argues that in many ways the family serves the needs of capitalism in a number of ways, ultimately benefitting the bourgeoisie and the proletariat remaining oppressed and exploited. Other perspectives however such as feminism would argue that serving the needs of capitalism is not the main aim of the family. They would argue instead that the family benefits males and reinforces a patriarchal society.

Engels argues that the nuclear family emerged as a direct result of capitalism. Primitive communism is the name given to society before capitalism had emerged. There was no private property and no family as such. Instead Engels called groups or tribes “the promiscuous horde” with no restrictions on sexual relationships. The introduction of capitalism meant that the wealthy wanted to secure control of the means of production. This brought around the monogamous nuclear family, as rich men had to ensure the paternity of their children so that they could pass down their property to legitimate heirs. This argument has been criticised by feminists who argue that this further reinforces patriarchy with women simply bearing children to provide men with legitimate heirs.

Functionalists however would dispute this view of the emergence of the nuclear family arguing instead that it came about in response to the demand of post-industrial society. Parsons functional fit theory explains how the family has evolved in keeping with the needs of society at that time. In post-industrial society when families farmed the land, they were typically extended, however after the industrial revolution the nuclear family emerged, creating a mobile workforce who could easily relocate to wherever work was available in the factories. This view has been criticised by Laslett who has argued that church records demonstrate that the extended family was already in decline and the nuclear family more popular even before the revolution, therefore cannot be seen as a direct response.

Marxists argued that the family can be seen as an ideological apparatus, helping to enforce a set of beliefs and values which ultimately benefit capitalism. For example children are bought up with a parental figure that they are taught to obey. This teaches them discipline, which will benefit their bosses when they join the workforce, but also teaches them about hierarchy and that inequality is inevitable making them less likely to question their position as an exploited proletariat when they go out to work, again benefitting capitalism. Again feminists have criticised this argument, due to the fact that children are socialised into the idea that the people in charge or at the top of the hierarchy are usually men again demonstrating that children are being socialised into gender specific roles in a patriarchal society.

Functionalists argue that rather than being an ideological apparatus spreading the ideas and values of capitalism, families benefit society as a whole through the function of primary socialisation. Functionalists argue that the family socialises children into the acceptable norms and values of society and ensures that order is maintained and deviance reduced. Marxists would challenge this view arguing that society is made up of two opposing groups, with a conflict of interests, therefore they would not interpret the family as having a positive role, or society’s agreeing on a set of shared norms and values.

Finally, Marxists argue that the family acts as a unit of consumption. The proletariat are exploited for their labour making consumer goods in factories which are then sold to them at a higher price than they were paid to produce them. Marxists argue that the family generates profits by targeting advertising at children who then use their ‘pester power’ to get goods bought by their parents. We also have a culture of ‘keeping up with the Jones’s where we consume the latest consumer products, again benefiting capitalism by lining the pockets of the bourgeoisie. However the Marxist perspective only views there being two classes, the proletariat and the bourgeoisie. Some commentators would argue that recently we have seen an emergence of an underclass who despite demonstrating a culture of unemployment, can still buy consumer goods without having to be exploited for their labour.

In conclusion the Marxist perspective has a number of compelling arguments as to how the family may serve the needs of capitalism; however it is unclear whether this argument is valid, especially in today’s diverse and rapidly changing society with a growing service sector and emergence of an underclass. Other perspectives such as feminism argue that the family does not serve the needs of capitalism, instead the needs of men, whereas functionalists focus on the positive functions of the family. Undeniably the family does hold benefits for its members by creating a supportive and loving environment for members, therefore to see it as purely benefiting capitalism would be short-sighted.

For a more accessible version of this plan, you might like to buy my AS Sociology Families and Households Revision Bundle where you’ll find a completed template like the one above…

Families Revision Bundle CoverThe Bundle contains the following:

  1. 50 pages of revision notes covering all of the sub-topics within families and households
  2. mind maps in pdf and png format – 9 in total, covering perspectives on the family
  3. short answer exam practice questions and exemplar answers – 3 examples of the 10 mark, ‘outline and explain’ question.
  4.  9 essays/ essay plans spanning all the topics within the families and households topic.

Related Posts

The Marxist Perspective on the Family

Assess the view that education policies since 1988 have improved equality of educational opportunity (30)

If you get a question on education policies, the chances are you will be asked about ‘education policies since 1988’. This post is designed to get you thinking about how you could use the info on the New Right’s 1988 Education Act and New Labour’s policies from 1997 onwards to answer an exam question in this area.

The New Right’s 1988 Education Act


Not interested in equal opps, mainly interested in raising standards… 

• Parentocracy – parents get to choose schools
• Marketisation – schools have to compete like businesses for students
• League tables to be published
• The above should raise standards as no parent would send child to failing school
• National Curriculum – ensures all schools teach core subjects
• OFSTED inspections

How 1988 worsened equality of opportunity… 


• Middle classes had more choice – cultural capital/ skilled choosers
• School/ parent alliance (Stephen Ball)
• Also selection by mortgage
• Polarisation of schools – sink schools

New Labour’s Policies


More interested in equal opps  

• Academies (Mossbourne) – set up in poorer areas
• EMA
• Sure start
• Expanded Vocationalism

Other aims of New Labour/ criticisms of the idea that New Labour’s policies raised standards

• Sure start didn’t work
• EMA did work but the Tories have now scrapped it
• Academies did work but new Tory academies are more selective
• Vocationalism offers more opportunities to the lower classes, but it is regarded as inferior.

The coalition government

  • Introduced the pupil premium which was extra funding for schools to take on disadvantaged pupils, with the funding being spent specifically on disadvantaged pupils.
  • HOWEVER in the long run there is mixed evidence the pupil premium works as the funding sometimes gets spent generally, rather than on disadvantaged pupils.
  • The coalition scrapped the EMA, one of the few policies which seemed to have worked to promote equality of opportunity.

The Tory government since 2015

  • T-levels may promote equal opportunity by offering more choice for non academic students, this may also help raise the status of academic subjects, breaking the traditional view that they are inferior to academic A-levels.
  • Lockdown policies harmed equal opportunities as poor students lost out on more learning than rich students and then covid-catch up policies were insufficient to actually help students catch up.
  • Funding cuts to education over several years harm equal opportunities as state schools fall further behind private schools.
  • The tories expanded grammar schools by stealth – this harms equal opportunities as grammar schools are over-attended by the the middle classes.

Other Information you could include…

• Compensatory Education – lots to say here….

• You could talk about Gender and Ethnicity too….

Conclusions: have education policies promoted equality of opportunity?

  • The main policy of the last 40 years has been marketisation which allows middle-class parents more freedom to exercise their cultural, material and social capital to get their children into the best schools, which works against equality as it favours the rich.
  • There have been policies such as the EMA/ Sure Start and Pupil Premium designed explicitly to tackle inequality but these have mostly been short lived or underfunded and failed to make any significant difference.
  • However the attainment gap overall has decreased slightly which suggests that these policies haven’t harmed equal opportunities too much.
  • The continued existence of private schools is the policy which harms equality the most as these institutions are vehicles of privilege for the wealthiest to hot house their average kids into the best grades and the top jobs they don’t deserve.
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