OCR AS sociology G671 Pre-release

This is my answer:
Peers are those people who we see as similar to ourselves, they tend to be the same age with similar identities, and people will usually try to make friends with their peers.
Peers influence our education, this is due to young people identifying themselves with peer groups who are the same gender and possibly the same class. Boys tend to be negatively influenced towards education by their peers. It is often found that boys will do better at subjects such as, maths and science, than girls who tend to do better in subjects such as, English and art. This is due to some subjects being considered as feminine and others seen as masculine, as girls are expected to be more creative whereas, boys are expected to be more logical. When a boy is found to portray an image of academic succeed they may be excluded from participating with their peers with activities, such as, sports, as academic success is considered feminine and ‘nerdy’ so they aren’t considered as ‘cool’ or manly so their peers exclude them. Roberts did a study of boys in school and found that those who showed academic success were teased and bullied so would mask their academic achievements in order to be accepted among their peers, some of these boys would even start ridiculing the other boys seen as academic. This study supports hegemonic masculinity traits as traditionally men are sporty rather than academic achievers, and those boys who do not show these traits are going against the social norms of masculinity. An issue with this study is that it does not explain why girls do better than boys academically, as it states that boys mask their achievements but if that were the case boys should still achieve at least to the same standard as girls in all areas, so it may be the case that these boys rather than mask their achievements actually, deliberately start doing worse academically.
Another way in which a young person may be influenced by their peers is through fashion trends. This is due to a young person associating themselves with peer groups and possibly subcultural groups whereby, there fashion trends go against that of mass culture, such as Goth’s who tend to wear a lot of black, bulky clothing which goes against the fashion of the masses. These young people follow the fashion trends of the groups they associate with as they wish to be included with thee social groups and in order for this to occur they feel pressured into wearing clothing similar to that of the group, also it is due to fear of exclusion and ridicule. A study done by Lees found that girls are put under great stress n looking right despite this being an unnatural feminine behaviour/trend. It is something girls are forced into in order to show that they are ‘good’ girl rather than ‘slag’. Girls feared that if they dress too ‘loose’ or ‘sexy; a fashion that their reputation would be ruined. Even though the study did not find this girls also fear that if they do not wear clothes considered as fashionable for their age group they may also be teased which pressures them to try their best to keep up with fashion trends shown to be popular amongst their peers. Boys may also face ridicule when they show too much care in their appearance and clothes as this is not considered as a masculine thing to do, so they are pressured to not care about appearance and current trends as when they do they may be called names such as ‘poof’ or ‘Nancy boy’.

I think my original essay got about 12 marks but this one has been improved and it should be worth 14 marks now, I did hand it in improved but my teacher did not give me any marks and just said that I did an excellent job.
Question 2 is similar to that of 8 mark questions just explain your point and use a study in each paragraph and an example and your looking at about 14-16 marks if you get your points correct. If you have enough time add another study in if you can remember one just to ensure that you get good marks. Try your best to do this question in 10 minutes.
Also write about 3/4 to 1 page for this answer.
If anyone else wants some essays I have done essays for almost every past question and possible question for this exam not sure on marks just been sticking to the same structures that have gotten me high marks in previous essays.

How would answer this question 'Outline and explain two ways in which young people are influenced by peers'?
Would you have to talk about how peers influence two forms of young people's identity (eg gender/ethnicty) or would you answer it differently?

does anyone know of any two ways that the peer group contributes towards an age identity?

What I would probably talk about is how peer groups place sanctions on their members if they don't conform to the groups norms and values, and since the media is a major agent of socilisation to age identities also, it creates a snowball effect where by the peer group reinforces the views of the media on individuals to form their identity, as peer groups equally have normative and informative qualities, individuals want to be liked and accepted by the peer group, as well as they use peer groups as a reference group to base their own identity around.
hope that helps, if it dosnt let me know anyhoo :P

Could anyone give me a quick run down of the structure of a 24 marker? I've got my 52, 16 and 8 covered, but writing 24's has been a little confusing for me, as I don't exactly know how to structure it or how to use evaluation in it >.<
also has anyone got a good example 24 marker, I've seen a couple on here but they have all gotten conflicting views >.<

p.s ill give a little perspective to everyone, usually from what I've seen one previouse years grade boundaries, if your aiming for an A you should be aiming to get around 75% or a little above that! and around 65% for a B, so on and so forth.
in real exam marks, if you aced all of the other questions you could afford to completely flunk either the 24 or 16 marker, would suggest it, but it is surprising :P

Do you guys think I should focus more on ethnicity and age? I'd like to narrow down my revision if possible

Do you guys think I should focus more on ethnicity and age? I'd like to narrow down my revision if possible

Hello im really panicking but do you please have a model answer of 'Explain and briefly evalutate the view that ethnicity is the most important source to an individuals identity' thankyou !!!!!!!

Hey guys, can I use a fineliner for this exam or can I use a BIRO???

basically for the 24 mark question the main body of the essay will be knowledge and understand so loads of sociological concepts and theories etc. but at the end of every point you make make sure you apply it back to the question and then there is only 4 evaluative marks so you just need a little paragraph at the end evaluating.
so for example if the question was, "Explain and briefly evaluate the role of thepeer group in creating and reinforcing ethnic identities" you would spend the whole essay writing about how the peer group is important in creating and reinforcing ethnic identities such as through peer group pressure and multi-ethnic friendship groups. but then at the end you would put a brief paragraph saying something like although the peer group is important, the family is also important because ... and then that's it.

If no sociologists are mentioned could ypu still do well ish

If no sociologists are mentioned could ypu still do well ish

Ok I amnow massivly freaking out, feel like i know nothing ahhh