Copy of Sociology

Year 9 have been exploring the key institution of families and households in the Spring term.

They will be finishing this area and moving on to look at sociological perspectives and research methods in more detail.

Research methods are a key area within sociology and appear on both paper 1 and paper 2. Students have already had an introduction lesson for each of the research methods used within sociology. However, this term’s lessons act as extension to the introduction lessons and aim to extend their prior knowledge and actively stretch and challenge them.

This sequence of lessons will begin by looking at the research process and sampling. Sampling methods will be applied to students within that lesson, therefore, making it easier for them to remember and recall them in CAPS and exams.

They will answer questions such as:

• ‘Identify and describe one sampling technique.’ (4 marks)
• ‘Identify and describe one reasons sociologists may use a non-probability sampling method in their research.’ (4 marks)

They will continue to expand their knowledge on a wide variety of research methods including questionnaires, interviews, and observations.

Towards the end of this topic, students will also learn a new research method, which is called content analysis. This will involve using media stimuli and transforming qualitative data (data in the form of letters or words) into quantitative data (data in the form of numbers).

Year 9 students will also look at social policy. This is an area, which is often overlooked in sociological curriculums, but it is a key component. It looks at how sociologists inform governments about social issues and provids recommendations about how to improve them. In essence, it is sociology in action and starts to give students ideas about where sociology could take them in the future.

It is likely this topic will finish before the end of the summer term. Therefore, the rest of the academic year will be spent revising content and consolidating learning through a variety of methods including whole group discussions, think-pair-share, computer-based activities, videos, and practice questions.

Year 10 are going to continue to study crime and deviance this term, exploring who commits crime and deviance based on social characteristics. They are then going to use sociological perspectives to analyse whether these individuals do commit more crime or whether something else is to blame, such as the actions of police officers. Marxism for example, argues that more working-class individuals are arrested and convicted due to the over policing of working-class areas. Marxists also argue ruling class individuals are more likely to get away with crime because they have the money and power to influence the criminal justice system.

The final component of crime and deviance that year 10 are going to explore is crime prevention. They are going to look at how crime prevention has changed in Britain throughout history. They are going to look at how in the 18^th and 19^th centuries, a retributive philosophy was used. This was based on the principle of ‘an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth’. It was focused on punishing the body and inflicting pain. They are then going to compare this to the 20^th and 21^st centuries where there is more of a focus on restorative justice. They are also going to do cross cultural comparisons by studying prisons in Sweden and Norway. For this component they are going to be asked questions such as:

• ‘Describe one way in which recent governments have tried to reduce deviant and criminal behaviour by young people and explain how successful this has been’. (5 marks)

Finally, year 10 students are going to deliver a presentation project in groups. They will have to put a presentation together on either sociological explanations of the London riots or do comparisons of prisons around the world to determine which one country/ type is best and why. This will allow them to develop a variety of skills including IT, application, and analysis. The presentation is also going to form half of their assessment for this topic. This will allow students to build confidence and  develop their communication skills.

This topic will be completed before the summer holidays. Therefore, the rest of the academic year will be spent on consolidating prior knowledge. We will revisit the family and household and research methods topics that were covered in year 9. The students will also practice answering 3, 4, 5 and 12-mark questions both in terms of content as well as structure as preparation for next year.

By the summer term, students would have finished the AQA GCSE Sociology specification. Therefore, the summer term will focus on revisiting and revising all the content that has been covered. Firstly, these revision lessons will focus on revising all the sociological perspectives and sociologists. This will help students re-establish the differences between them and ensure they use them correctly in exams. It will also help students to develop their confidence in their written work even further.

After these revision lessons on sociological theories and sociologists are covered, the revision will focus on topics covered throughout the course of the GCSE which include:

Year 9 – Family and Households, Research methods.

Year 10 – Education, Crime and Deviance.

Year 11 – Social Stratification.

The revision lessons will be personalised to the needs of the group. This is done through the analysis of student’s work and by looking at both in class assessments and mock data to highlight their strengths as well as any gaps in their knowledge. These revision lessons are also based on discussions with students, so they can inform staff of the areas in which they feel less confident.

Personalised support sessions are also available at each campus, every week during term time.

Students take two papers, both worth 100 marks and both being 1 hour and 45 minutes in length. Each paper is worth 50% of their overall grade.

AQA GCSE Sociology Paper 1 – Family and households, education (with research methods embedded throughout).

AQA GCSE Sociology Paper 2 – Crime and deviance, social stratification (with research methods embedded throughout).

Year 12 students will look at the sixth component for the education topic. They will begin by examining in greater depth how gender affects educational achievement. They will look at quantitative data (data in the forms of numbers) to recognise patterns and trends in terms of gender and educational achievement. Students will explore why boys are underachieving in comparison to girls in the education system. This will consolidate their prior knowledge whilst also introducing gender theorists and their perspective on educational achievement. It will also require them to apply and compare previous theoretical views to gender and educational achievement.

The seventh and final component on the education topics gets students to analysise quantitative data to look at how different ethnic groups are achieving in the education system. Students will then explore reasons why certain ethnic groups achieve highly in education whereas other ethnic groups underachieve. This will require them to apply previous knowledge such as labelling and the self-fulfilling prophecy to ethnicity and educational achievement and critically evaluate why certain groups underperform and underachieve.

In terms of the culture and identity topic, students will study the final component, which looks at additional factors. Students will look at how production affects identity. They will examine the key work of Stanley Parker ‘The Sociology of Leisure’ and analyse whether it is still relevant to contemporary society, after which they will move on to look at consumption and identity. Students will explore and discuss whether identity can be bought in society today and they will be required to apply and analysis both the Marxist and 

postmodern perspective in relation to this. Towards the end of this sequence of lessons, students will have to critically assess what they have learnt so far to justify whether they believe individuals are free to construct their own identities in society today or whether there are still constraining factors such as money, class, gender, sexuality etc.

After completing all components, students will move on to look at theories and methods. Theory and methods will be on both paper 1 and paper 3. Students will be asked a method in context 20-mark question in both papers; they also complete a 10-mark theories or methods question in both papers.

One teacher will teach them about advanced sociological theory, whilst the other teacher will introduce them to research methods. In terms of the advanced sociological theory lessons, this consolidate, stretch and challenge what students have already learnt. They will be introduced to more advanced sociological concepts such as Talcott Parson’s ideas that societies have pattern variables and Karl Marx’s idea that societies do, or are going through, five modes of production.

Students will learn about the different types of research methods used in sociology including questionnaires, interviews, observations, and longitudinal studies. Students will also examine different types of data including primary data (collected by the sociologists themselves) and secondary data (data already out there in society). Students will also explore qualitative data (data in the form of words or language).  Year 12 will also analysise whether sociology should be considered a science or social science. To do this, they will explore the idea of positivism and interpretivism. Positivism is a school of thought that argues sociology should be considered a science as it argues that human behaviour is predictable. Therefore, reliability and scientific methods should be used.  Students will then learn about interpretivism. This school of thought argues that sociology should be a social science as human behaviour is not predictable since human beings have emotions and free will. Therefore, research methods that focus on validity should be used.  After learning about these schools of thought around methodology, students will be able to evaluate and analysis them. This will allow them to develop their critically evaluation and analytical abilities.

This is exam season for the Year 13 group as we focus on essay writing and revision. Students will begin by revising theories and research methods. Teacher 1 will focus on revising advanced social theory with them, whilst teacher 2 will focus on research methods. These revision lessons should take 3-4 weeks, with any remaining time being used to focus revision on education and culture and identity.

Students will be heading to their exams and will be encouraged to make the most out of their study time and will be expected to revise using a variety of techniques.

Students will sit three exams:

Sociology Paper 1: Education and Research Methods  

Sociology paper 2: Topics in Sociology  

Sociology Paper 3: Crime and Deviance & Theory and Methods  

There are A-level support sessions available at both the Walnut Tree and Brooklands Campus. These currently run 8:30 – 9:30 am once a week. However, these times may be subject to change next year based on the timetable.

These support sessions allow students to receive more personalised and individual support in a small group setting. Through discussion between staff and students, we identify areas they struggle with more and help them to acquire the knowledge they need to know about these areas.

Revision sites for students:

https://www.thesociologyteacher.com/a-level-sociology

https://hecticteachersociology.com/

https://senecalearning.com/en-GB/parents

Exams are important but what is of even more importance is your child’s mental health – please see below for some useful tool to help your child with self-care whilst they are preparing for exams:

https://www.annafreud.org/schools-and-colleges/resources/my-self-care-plan-secondary/

https://www.annafreud.org/on-my-mind/self-care/

We wish students all the best in their exams and commend them on their hard work and achievement over the last two years.