AQA A2 SOCIOLOGY: Official Revision Thread for 2015 exams!

Yes it will.

1/ define what social policy means= attempts made by the government to influence how society should be organised. Often social policy comes about as a reaction to the changes of nature and the structure of society. Therefore, its aim is to produce social polices to ensure that social order is maintained by tackling social problems= no anarchy and chaos.

2/ (you need to understand how social policies come about- Sociologists are concerned with sociological problems, whilst government is concerned with social problems. Sociologists provide data from sociological research and provide recommendations and government can either agree and implement their findings into social policies or nah ) = You will need to explain what different factors may come up whether or not sociologists can successfully influence government
example= government will be selective of what recommendation they will choose to agree on if it is similar to their own interests/ political stance or values.

now you can talk about different theories and their view of social policies.

1/ FUNCTIONALISTS- Yes= social policies= help social system run more smoothly to minimise conflict but rather promote value consensus. For example= education policies= equal opportunities/ social integration.

2/LEFT REALISTS (social democrat approach)Ya= but government funding should focus more on improving relationships between police and working class ethnic min/ improve people's economic and educational opportunities= tackle POVERTY= no one will then feel marginalised or relatively deprived= NO CRIMINAL SUBCULTURES

3/ MARXISTS= nope= social policies are ideological state apparatus that prevents social change/ that benefit the ruling class and its interests= more profit= exploitation and labour power/ provide false conciousness= false harmony for example, the NHS care for the sick and vulnerable giving the impression that capitalism truly cares for them, but really, its so that they can continue to work to provide profit for the bourgeoisie.

4/ FEMINISTS= nope= social policies only serve the interests of the patriarchal society to perpetuate the subordinate position of women in society. Women are given longer paid maternity leave than men? = it reaffirms that women's natural role should be to stay at home and look after the children. (thats a generalisation, but thats only one way to look at it) Criticisms? = there has been a genderquake= equal opportunities for women


5/ RIGHT REALISTS (New right approach)- NO= gov should have as little involvement with people's lives as possible because they're bcoming workshy and welfare dependent and robs freedom or choice and independency. But we should target looking after the environment so that this will minimise street crime/ non/ economical crime= Environmental crime prevention/ Situational crime prevention etc etc.

Yeh please


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whats the likelihood that sociology as value free and value laden will come up??

It could come up as there hasn't been a recent question on it. But then social policy could come up too

so the predictions are
social policy
value
postmodernism
interprevists vs positivists


am i right?

so the predictions are
social policy
value
postmodernism
interprevists vs positivists


am i right?

Yeah that could be

Also, I was just looking over some past papers and thought that sociology and Science may well come up? as a trick question. Because the AS paper had similar questions to last year. Not saying that last years questions will come up.

grade boundaries are so lowwwwwwww

A = 56/90
for unit 4

grade boundaries are so lowwwwwwww

A = 56/90
for unit 4

The amount i've revised for this I'll bring the grade boundaries up to 85/90 for an A

(jokes)

that stresses me out.

what did you get last year?

Honestly I was only joking i'm ****ting myself lol. Theory + Methods makes no sense to me. Like I don't even know what ethnomethodology is.

my teacher, who marks papers for sociology said to me that you don't need to know that bcs there will never be a direct question on that.
you only learn that stuff when you get to degree level sociology