AQA Sociology Unit 1 17/05 & Unit 2 23/05 - Official Thread 2016

1. serial monogamy- I wrote something along the lines of "when people have a series of relationships which are each loyal to that person" (I hadn't learnt this but it seems like common sense)

2. domestic abuse is an example of women's exploitation in the home- Dobash and Dobash (domestic violence is caused by women challenging men's authority) and Ansara and Hindin (women suffer more domestic violence than men and it has more severe psychological consequences)

3. three reasons for women having children later-
A- impact of paid work, the roles have been broken down and women are no longer just the expressive role- they may go to work and focus on their career first and have children later
B- introduction of effective contraception- allows intimacy without reproduction- people can plan when they have kids more and often opt to have them later
C- later age of marriage- due to it being dis-embedded from the economic system, individualisation thesis, changing norms

4. two policies affecting the experience of childhood
A- laws preventing children from working before the age of 16- thus seen as needing protection, creates golden age of childhood- I compared this to in the middle ages where children were simply "mini adults"- Aries found painting depicted them like this
B- laws against child abuse- children seen as vulnerable and needing protection, child centred family, different views to in the middle ages where children were called "it" (Shorter)

5. evaluating the Marxist contributions of theories of the family
- society is based on division between capitalist and working class
-Marxists see the family as perpetuating this in three ways- as a unit of consumption, for the inheritance of property and for ideological functions
- family is a safe haven (Eli Zaretsky) and men can take their anger out and then return to work to continue serving capitalism
-Fran Ansley- women are the takers of ****- absorb men's anger in the home
- contradicted by the functionalist argument
-functionalists argue that Marxists ignore the benefits of the family for its members and for society
-.e.g. Murdock- 4 functions- socialisation, economic needs, reproduction and stabilisation of sex drive
- Marxists also criticised by feminists- who say Marxists focus too much on class inequalities, and forget about gender inequalities
-conclusion- all structural theories are criticised by the personal life perspective
-Nordqvist and Smart- emphasise the importance of bottom up approaches, criticise Marxist approach because it is a top down approach

RESEARCH METHODS
1. two ethical issues (4 marks)
-Harm to ppts- may affect what type of method they use
-deception- Milgram- they thought they had actually killed someone- may need debriefing, also affects the type of method they use

2. 16 marker about the use of official stats
+representative
-criticised by interpretivists such as Cicourel for lacking depth
+ free, easy to access, useful as a preliminary tool
- may not be relevant as collected for government purposes
+ objective, liked by Durkhiem- comparison of suicide between Protestants and Catholics
+ can make comparisons and see differences or trends across time
- cannot actually make comparisons because the government manipulate definitions- e,g. the definition of unemployment has changed 30 times, so can't actually make comparisons

the research methods question only asked for advantages???? i only wrote about disadvantages in the conclusion?? wouldnt it make sense for you to loose marks if you wrote about disadvantages as the question asked for advantages?

i think you would get definitely low 40s probably 42/43
but you know your six marker
how did you explain infant mortality rate and dual earner as delaying childbirth, they sound quite interesting


i put;
changing ambitions
better educational opportunities
financial issues and then explained them

wow, this sounds absolutley amazing well done!!!!

I feel like the 16MQ in Research Methods was slightly unfair as I only wrote about advantages since that's what it asked me to do. But apparently other people wrote about the disadvantages too! Will I lose marks?

yes you will loose marks because you didn't evaluate it , it said evaluate in the question aswell which means you need to use disadvantages too . You only needed like 5 / 6 advantages with 2 disadvantages for full marks , if all points are valid . It depends how many advantages you wrote but I think you could loose about 4/6 marks

Oh I wrote 3 advantages and 3 disadvantages?
How many marks if they're all valid?

yes you will loose marks because you didn't evaluate it , it said evaluate in the question aswell which means you need to use disadvantages too . You only needed like 5 / 6 advantages with 2 disadvantages for full marks , if all points are valid . It depends how many advantages you wrote but I think you could loose about 4/6 marks

Generally it's not about quantity but rather quality- I wrote about roughly the same. If all your points explicitly answer the question, I would definitely say you got full marks or a high band mark. For lengthy questions like so, all they mostly care about is if you link back(obviously with the right content).

3 advantages and 3 disadvantages is a good bunch in my opinion. I hope you do well!

Oh I wrote 3 advantages and 3 disadvantages?
How many marks if they're all valid?

thats actually too many disadvantages, you are only supposed to evaluate the advantages with disadvantages - our class attended a conference by Keith Trobe, who is a chief examiner and also wrote the official book, and said that it should be around 90 per cent advantages, 10 per cent disadvantages.

thats actually too many disadvantages, you are only supposed to evaluate the advantages with disadvantages - our class attended a conference by Keith Trobe, who is a chief examiner and also wrote the official book, and said that it should be around 90 per cent advantages, 10 per cent disadvantages.

Do you lose marks for too many disadvantages???

I don't think you lose marks for writing disadvantages, its more like you lose marks for not having enough advantages, since there is no negative marking

so if your answer is balanced, you should only expect up to 10 marks

I don't think you lose marks for writing disadvantages, its more like you lose marks for not having enough advantages, since there is no negative marking

so if your answer is balanced, you should only expect up to 10 marks

I evaluated each advantage with an advantage, instead of doing a full counter point, is this OK?

Hey guys.
What's the percentages that counts towards your final grades for each paper?
Also i only wrote on advantage and one disadvantage for research methods, and only one (well-developed) advantage on method in context (due to bad time management)
Would this drastically bring down my grade?