National Year 12 Sociology
Chapters: 7
1. 4.1.1 Education
4.1.1 Role and functions of education · 4.1.1 Differential achievement · 4.1.1 Processes within schools · 4.1.1 Educational policy
- Sociology of Education: What Schools Do and Why Results Differ – Sociologists ask what school does for society and why some groups do better than others. Functionalists say education builds shared values, teaches job skills and sorts people into roles by merit. Marxists say school copies the unequal workplace through a hidden curriculum, so class inequality is passed on. Results differ by social class, gender and ethnicity because of home factors (money, cultural capital, language, parents' help) and school factors (labelling, setting and streaming, the self-fulfilling prophecy, pupil subcultures). Governments use policy to shape schools: selection, marketisation, privatisation and equality measures. Getting more pupils into school (massification) does not by itself give everyone equal chances (democratisation).
2. 4.1.2 Methods in context
4.1.2 Methods in context
- Sociological Research Methods – Sociologists study society by doing research, step by step: choose a topic, write an aim or hypothesis, run a small pilot study, choose a sample, collect data, analyse it and draw conclusions. A sample is a small group picked from the whole population; it should be representative so the results can be generalised. Quantitative data are numbers (from questionnaires, structured interviews, official statistics); qualitative data are words and meanings (from unstructured interviews, observation, documents). Primary data are collected by the researcher; secondary data already exist. Good research is reliable (repeatable), valid (a true picture) and representative. Researchers choose methods based on practical issues (time, cost, access), ethical issues (consent, confidentiality, harm, deception) and theory: positivists prefer scientific, numerical methods, while interpretivists prefer methods that capture people's meanings.
3. 4.1.3 Theory and methods: research methods
4.1.3 Research methods
- Sociological Research Methods – Sociologists study society by doing research, step by step: choose a topic, write an aim or hypothesis, run a small pilot study, choose a sample, collect data, analyse it and draw conclusions. A sample is a small group picked from the whole population; it should be representative so the results can be generalised. Quantitative data are numbers (from questionnaires, structured interviews, official statistics); qualitative data are words and meanings (from unstructured interviews, observation, documents). Primary data are collected by the researcher; secondary data already exist. Good research is reliable (repeatable), valid (a true picture) and representative. Researchers choose methods based on practical issues (time, cost, access), ethical issues (consent, confidentiality, harm, deception) and theory: positivists prefer scientific, numerical methods, while interpretivists prefer methods that capture people's meanings.
4. 4.2.1 Topic option 1 (choose one): Culture and identity
4.2.1 Culture and identity
- Culture and Socialisation: How We Learn to Live Together – Culture is the whole way of life that a group learns and shares: its ideas, rules and things. It is learned, not born with us. Culture has three sides: cognitive (what we know and believe), normative (rules for how to behave) and material (tools and objects). Socialisation is the lifelong process by which a baby becomes a member of society by learning this culture. It happens through agencies: family, peer group, school, mass media, and others like work, religion and community.
5. 4.2.2 Topic option 1 (choose one): Families and households
4.2.2 Families and households
- The Family in Sociology – A household is everyone who lives in one home; a family is people linked by blood, marriage, partnership or adoption. Families do four main jobs: having and raising children, socialisation, economic support and emotional care. Families take many forms: nuclear, extended, lone-parent, reconstituted (step-families), same-sex and beanpole families, and the mix differs between societies and over time. Conjugal roles, the jobs of partners at home, have moved from segregated to more joint, though women still often do more housework and care. Relationships between parents, children and grandparents have changed too. Functionalists see the family as good for society, while Marxists, feminists and others point to its dark side. Divorce rose in many countries after 1950 because of new laws, women's financial independence, less stigma and higher expectations of marriage.
6. 4.2.3 Topic option 1 (choose one): Health
4.2.3 Health
- Sociology of Health: Why Health Is Social as Well as Biological – The sociology of health asks how society shapes who gets ill, what counts as illness and who gets care. The biomedical model sees illness as a body fault fixed by doctors; the social model says ideas of health and illness are socially constructed and change across cultures, time and groups. Parsons' sick role excuses the sick from duties if they try to get well. Health chances are unequal by class, gender, ethnicity and region, forming a social gradient. Four explanations are offered: artefact, social selection, cultural/behavioural and material/structural. Access to care is also unequal; the inverse care law says those in most need often get the least. Mental illness is seen by interactionists as partly a label with stigma, and by structuralists as real with social causes. Medicine and the health industry are viewed differently by functionalists, Marxists, feminists and critics like Illich, who warns of iatrogenesis (harm caused by medicine).
7. 4.2.4 Topic option 1 (choose one): Work, poverty and welfare
4.2.4 Work, poverty and welfare
- Poverty: Meaning, Measurement, Causes and Responses – Absolute poverty means lacking the basics needed to survive: food, water, shelter, clothing. The World Bank extreme-poverty line is about US$3 a person a day (2021 prices). Relative poverty means having much less than the usual standard in your society, often measured as below 60% of median income, so people cannot join normal life. Poverty is unequally spread: children, lone parents, disabled people, unemployed people, some ethnic minorities and rural families face higher risk, and wealth is even more unequal than income. Cultural explanations blame values passed on in families or a welfare-dependent "underclass"; structural explanations blame low wages, unemployment, insecure and de-skilled work, globalisation and welfare cuts. Responses include benefits, pensions, minimum wages and free services, with debate about dependency.