Sociology A Level

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Website

https://www.aqa.org.uk/subjects/sociology/as-and-a-level/sociology-7191-7192/introduction

Units

Paper 1:Education with theory and methods

Paper 2: Families and households and beliefs in society

Paper3: Crime and deviance with theory and methods

What you will learn

Year 1

Education

· The role and functions of the education system, including its relationship to the economy and to class structure.

· Differential educational achievement of social groups by social class, gender and ethnicity in contemporary society.

· Relationships and processes within schools, with particular reference to teacher/pupil relationships, pupil identities and subcultures, the hidden curriculum, and the organisation of teaching and learning.

· The significance of educational policies, including policies of selection, marketization and privatisation, and polices to achieve greater equality of opportunity or outcome, for an understanding of the structure, role, impact and experience of and access to education; the impact of globalisation on educational policy.

Families and Households

· The relationship of the family to the social structure and social change, with particular reference to the economy and to state policies

· Changing patterns of marriage, cohabitation, separation, divorce, childbearing and the life course, including the sociology of personal life, and the diversity of contemporary family and household structures

· Gender roles, domestic labour and power relationships within the family in contemporary society

· The nature of childhood, and changes in the status of children in the family and society

· Demographic trends in the United Kingdom since 1900: birth rates, death rates, family size, life expectancy, ageing population, and migration and globalisation

Year 1 and year 2

Theory and Methods

· Qualitative and quantitative research methods

· Primary and secondary methods

· Practical, ethical and theoretical issues

· Positivism and Interpretivism

· Consensus, conflict, structural and social action theories

· Sociology as a science

· Debates about subjectivity, objectivity and value freedom

Year 2

Beliefs in society

· Ideology, science and religion, including both Christian and non-Christian religious traditions

· The relationship between social change and social stability, and religious beliefs, practices and organisations

· Religious organisations, including cults, sects, denominations, churches and New Age movements, and their relationship to religious and spiritual belief and practice

· The relationship between different social groups and religious/spiritual organisations and movements, beliefs and practices

· The significance of religion and religiosity in the contemporary world, including the nature and extent of secularisation in a global context, and globalisation and the spread of religions.

Crime and deviance

· Crime, deviance, social order and social control

· The social distribution of crime and deviance by ethnicity, gender and social class, including recent patterns and trends in crime

· Globalisation and crime in contemporary society; the media and crime; green crime; human rights and state crimes

· Crime control, surveillance, prevention and punishment, victims, and the role of the criminal justice system and other agencies

Textbook(s)

AQA Sociology for A Level Book 1 and Book 2

Sample papers

Sociology paper 1 Education with theory and methods

Sociology paper 2 Topics in sociology

Sociology Paper 3 Crime and deviance with theory and methods