A Level Sociology

A Level Sociology

Easter Revision Course Dates 2024

• Week 1: Monday 25 March – Friday 29 March
• Week 2: Monday 1 April – Friday 5 April
• Week 3: Monday 8 April – Friday 12 April

Boards

Suitable for all exam boards.

Length of Course

Five full days, 40 hours total.

Times

9.00am to 12.30pm or 1.00pm to 4.30pm daily.

The structure of the Easter Revision course is as follows:

Topic 1 (AS) – 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.

Topic 2 (AS) – Families and Households:
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.

Topic 3 (AS) – 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.

Topic 4 (AS) – Education:
Relationships and processes within schools, regarding 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, marketisation and privatisation, and policies 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.

Topic 5 (AS) – Sociological Research Methods:
Quantitative and Qualitative methods of research; research design sources of data, including questionnaires, interviews, participant and non-participant observation, experiments, documents and official statistics. The distinction between primary and secondary data, and between quantitative and qualitative data. Sociological Research Methods: The relationship between positivism, interpretivism and sociological methods; the nature of ‘social facts’. The theoretical, practical and ethical considerations influencing choice of topic, choice of method(s) and the conduct of research.

Topic 6 (2nd Year) – Media:
The new media and their significance for an understanding of the role of the media in contemporary society. The relationship between ownership and control of the media. The media, globalisation and popular culture. The processes of selection and presentation of the content of the news. Media representations of age, social class, ethnicity, gender, sexuality and disability. The relationship between the media, their content and presentation, and audiences.

Topic 7 (2nd Year) – Beliefs:
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.

Topic 8 (2nd Year) – Crime:
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.

Topic 9 (2nd Year) – 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.

Topic 10 (2nd Year) – Theory:
Consensus, conflict, structural and social action theories, the concepts of modernity and post-modernity in relation to sociological theory. The nature of science and the extent to which Sociology can be regarded as scientific. The relationship between theory and methods. Debates about subjectivity, objectivity and value freedom the relationship between Sociology and social policy.