Sociology

Course summary

Sociology is the study of how society is organized and how we experience life. In A Level Sociology we develop an understanding of the complexity of human societies, including how the experience of those societies can differ depending on your social group – like gender, class or ethnicity. We will ask whether we still need feminism, question whether international aid really helps developing countries and consider why official statistics show a difference in criminal offending between ethnicities that isn’t reflected in self-report studies. The course starts with an overview of the key sociological approaches, which we then apply to a range of areas. In the first year of A Level Sociology, we cover: - Families and Households – changing trends in family units; the construction of childhood; differing gender roles, and the impact of social policies on family life - Education with Theory and Methods – the role of education; differences in attainment by class, ethnicity, and gender; changing education policies and relationships in schools. In the second year, we move on to: - Crime and Deviance – different sociological explanations of crime; differences in offending rates by gender, class, and ethnicity; the impact of globalization on crime, and crime control - Global Development – sociological explanations for global inequality; the role of transnational corporations, NGOs, etc. in promoting development, and the role of globalization on cultural, political, and economic relationships between societies.