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Sociology - AQA Unit 2 - Education and Research Methods Jan 2011

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Very good!
I'm just wondering, why does functionalist and marxists perfer macro?
I don't think I've read that in my notes..

I wouldn't say functionalists and marxists prefer macro - they just are macro. They are macro theories - big theories! - they see society as a whole and try to understand it as a whole. That is their way of looking at society.

I think, these macro theorists believe that you cannot understand society looking on a smaller perspective - like micro theories do. Interactionists for example take the interpretivist approach, and like to understand the meaning behind actions an individual takes in the hope of being able to use the research to reflect society. Macro theorists are more likely to use positivist data - because quantitative data/numerical data shows the bigger picture, and gives a clear (or debateable) indication on society as a whole.

There have been some studies by Marxists in particular in regards to studying subculture, or how teachers react to students of a particular 'label', and it might be important that you are aware of this. (Check out the links on page 3.)

However, functionalism tends to be somewhat more 'pure' on the positivist side because they see society as a working system, and there may not be so valid to their approach if they study on an micro scale in order to understand how society 'functions'.

Hope I made some kind of sense here;; :s-smilie:

Reply 61

Jess (:

Original post by Tulin

Original post by Xyonzz

Functionalists and marxists prefer macro because it's more focused with how society creates people, as opposed to the interactionalist view that people shape society. so for functionalists/marxists, they'd need to use macro to observe the society as a whole to see how it affects people...if that makes sense. it's dodgy to explain, but yeah :biggrin:

Thank you both so much! I'm glad this is an active forum! Yes I understand it now :colondollar:

. It's barely mentioned in the book or who prefers what. I wonder if I've got an awful book :s-smilie:

Now I'm more nervous I'll get awful questions :rolleyes:

Reply 62

sammy110

Off to sleep now guys good luck with your exams =) any ideas of what might come up so i can do a quick brush up on those topics tomorrow morning? XD

Reply 63

Jess (:

Original post by sammy110

Off to sleep now guys good luck with your exams =) any ideas of what might come up so i can do a quick brush up on those topics tomorrow morning? XD

Some information on other pages:

Original post by dan_griffin11

Education - last time social policies and class came up so DEFINITELY revise ethnicity and gender.

Methods - last time questionnaires and PET came up so DEFINITELY revise interviews/PO/secondary data.

Remember to make sure to specificially link the METHOD to the SPECIFIC TOPIC for the M in C question.

Original post by Lily B

Ethnicity came up in tha january 2009 paper and gender in january 2010. From 2009 and 2010 all education questions have been asked EXCEPT marxism education, class differences internal factors and external factors. So i would say revise them three essay questions thoroughly. As for the methods, my class hada feeling about experiments as it was only asked in the january 2009 paper and perhaps questionnaires, PO and interviews. So i wouldn't think they would come up as 20mark this year. They might yet however be 12 marks

Good night and thanks! Good luck too!

(edited 13 years ago)

Reply 64

teaandcoffee

Right, I have given up with last minute revision. I will be getting up early to do some more cramming and then I guess... hope for the best! Good luck everyone :smile:

Reply 65

ilickbatteries

Good luck everyone.

I did this module last year and have been helping a girl in my class do bits of revision for her resit, so I hope it's a good paper :biggrin:

Reply 66

daemongreen

Original post by ilickbatteries

Good luck everyone.

I did this module last year and have been helping a girl in my class do bits of revision for her resit, so I hope it's a good paper :biggrin:

I hope it is! if a question does come up on educational policy, do you know any recent legislation that has affected the structure of education? eg under cameron? and if so, do you know the names of the bills/ acts

Reply 67

TallulahStaple

Original post by daemongreen

If you have time read through this:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2010/nov/19/students-education-maintenance-allowance

It's talking about the effects of the EMAs being cut by the gov't & think it will look quite impressive if you can fit it in somewhere relevant

Reply 68

teaandcoffee

How did people find it?

I didnt think it was a necessarily difficult paper, but it wasn't easy either.

Not sure how I did, I think I let myself down with the research methods, particularly the personal and historical docs question - I forgot about content analysis and couldn't think of many advantages. So only could write about a page...

Reply 69

ezia

I thought it wasn't too bad, but I have no idea how well I've actually done :/
Yeah I forgot some advantages of documents, but hopefully I waffled on enough to get decent marks :P

Reply 70

Mohit1

HOW DID EVERYONE FIND IT?

It was very complex, but at the same time not that bad.

That last question about historical data was very hard. I got the part of personal documents and the advantages of using them e.g. reliable, high validity and produce qualitative data.

The paper on the whole, had some good small mark questions, for instance for the methods part it was laid out a 2, 4, 4 marker and they were relatively straight forward.

The 20 marker in-between asking us to choose from questionnaires or structured interviews was not that bad, I personally went for the questionnaires because I knew quite a few strengths and limitations

The Education part wasn't that bad to be fair but something that got to me was another policy that i could not remind myself of. The question that asked ''Name the policies out there today that help class come over educational achievement'' (Well something like that)

I Rote about the ''The education Reform Act''
''The Tripartite System''
'' Chance'' ( Which is a charity that helps working class students
get into private schools, if they do good in exams
it funds their tuition fees) (COMPLETE BULL**** - i
could not think of anything!)

But on the whole...

Don't think Ive done that well! :mad:

Reply 71

teaandcoffee

Original post by Mohit1

I also found the last essay q a bit daunting, I didn't really have much to write about much tried to blag it as much as I could!

For the identify three education policies or something I put marketisation of education, education reform act and Sure Start. I forgot about policies so just put down anything I remembered! :rolleyes:

For the education essay q I wrote about functionalist and marxist view on education. I hope other people put this!

I also did questionnaires, I am not very good at the methods in context questions but hoping to have scores okay-ish on it.

I am sure you've done fine!

Reply 72

Mohit1

Original post by teaandcoffee

Thank you

I'm sure you've done brilliant too!

''For the education essay q I wrote about functionalist and marxist view on education. I hope other people put this!''

Right there with you! I Wrote about functionalism(durkhiem and parsons) Marxists view ( althusser, wilis and bowles and gintis...) Radical view ( illich) feminist view.. talking about what liberal, radical and Marxist feminists say!

Hope everything is going to be ok! :smile:

Reply 73

sammy110

I personally thought it was a pretty good paper but boy does my hand hurt from writing! XD
For the gender one i talked about external factors such as primary socialisation,impact of femanism,lone parent families,portrial of women in the media/mags and thrown in some internal reasons for girls achievement such as Educational reform act with the introduction of the national curriculum and coursework schools with women in high power gives girls an educational role model,marketisation leading to girls being placed in better schools leading to segregation and further male underachievement. etc for a little evaluation marks.

For the education essay i discussed functionalism's ideas such as social solidarty and teaching specialist skills,role allocation, parsons - meritocracy etc

Contrasted with Marxists view such as althuser's idealogical state apparatuses and about how education reproduces and legitimates class inequality, also throwing in bowles and gintis on the hidden curriculum and the corrospondence principle and the myth of meritocracy.

For the questionaire one i talked about practical, ethical and theoretical advantages/disadvanages while relating them to parents pretty easy i thought :smile:

For the last essay one on historical and personal documents i discussed Practical,ethical and theoretical pro's and con's again and wacked in some relevant examples of the use of letters in the classroom (can't remember the study lol ) and the use of content analysis and why it appeals to positivists and also that using multiple research methods and how some compliment eachover.

Overall I think i didn't do to bad :smile:

Hope everyone has a good one! XD

(edited 13 years ago)

Reply 74

Jess (:

Worst day!

Car started to jerk back and forth and stall 3/4 through a 20 mile drive. Then I arrived at College to find out on the timetable the exam was in the morning. Only to then be told the timetable is wrong, after 10 minutes of hard worrying. Then found out the exam was at 2pm, instead of 1pm. Some hard questions and then my car failed to start and it took me 3 hours to get home instead of the normal half an hour.

Then to top it off I have no idea how I did! I did kind of muffle the historical and personal documents question. Plus, I could only think of one point for the 6 mark education policy question, I just stared at it for 10 minutes. Oh and I have an exam tomorrow.

I hope everyone did good! I have read through what people said and I'm not panicking..

(edited 13 years ago)

Reply 75

teaandcoffee

Original post by Jess (:

Worse day!

Car started to jerk back and forth and stall 3/4 through a 20 mile drive. Then I arrived at College to find out on the timetable the exam was in the morning. Only to then be told the timetable is wrong, after 10 minutes of hard worrying. Then found out the exam was at 2pm, instead of 1pm. Some hard questions and then my car failed to start and it took me 3 hours to get home instead of the normal half an hour.

Then to top it off I have no idea how I did! I did kind of muffle the historical and personal documents question. Plus, I could only think of one point for the 6 mark education policy question, I just stared at it for 10 minutes. Oh and I have an exam tomorrow.

I hope everyone did good! I have read through what people said and I'm not panicking..

Oh my goodness this sounds like the worst day ever! :console:

Good luck in your exam tomorrow!

Reply 76

miss.match

I was sick so couldn't take the education exam today..but will be taking it in the summer. Sucks having to do it after revising for it for the last few weeks, but it sounds hard! Can anyone tell me what the questions were so i know what to skim over in may?!

Thanks :smile:

Good luck everyone with your exams!

Reply 77

teaandcoffee

Original post by miss.match

Good luck everyone with your exams!

Aw sorry to hear you were ill! But you have more time now to practise :smile:

I will try remember the questions, they may not be correct word for word.

Education:
1. Explain the term 'cultural deprivation'.
2. Suggest three educational policies that have influences social class educational achievement.
3. Identify the factors outside the education system that have contributed to the improvement in girls educational achievement.
4. Using info from Item A and elsewhere, assess the view that the education system prepares and sorts young people into future work roles.

Methods in context:
1. Using info from item B and elsewhere, examine the strengths and limitations of questionnaires or unstructured interviews when researching parental influence on pupils achievement.

Research methods:
1. What is primary data?
2. Suggest two problems sociologists may face using structured interviews.
3. Identify one advantage and one disadvantage of lab experiments.
3. Examine the advantages of using personal and historical documents in sociological research.

Hope this helps. good luck in the exam in summer :smile:

Reply 78

Checkalex

Got the paper in front of me, the questions word for word were as follows:

Section A: Education with Research Methods

1: Explain what is meant by the term 'Cultural Deprivation'
2: Identify three educational policies that may have contributed to social class differences in achievement
3: Outline some of the ways in which factors outside the education system have resulted in improved educational achievement for girls
4: Using material from Item A and elsewhere, assess the view that the education system exists mainly to select and prepare young people for their future work roles

Methods in Context

5: Using material from Item B and elsewhere, assess the strengths and limitations of one of the following methods for investigating the role of parents in pupils' achievement

EITHER Questionnaires

OR Unstructured interviews

Research Methods

These questions permit you to draw examples from any areas of sociology with which you are familiar

6: Explain what is meant by 'Primary' data
7: Suggest two disadvantages that sociologists might find when using structured interviews
8: Suggest one advantage and one disadvantage of using laboratory experiments in sociological research
9: Examine the advantages of using personal documents and historical documents in sociological research

Hope that helps, would be nice to know how more of you answered them, I think I didn't do too bad but think I didn't have enough case studies etc.