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What is sociology all about?

kjhuhgf

1

I'm asking this question because i'm moving to college and doing this topic. :smile:

Reply 1

sexysax

14

I'm still wondering that myself, and I've done the A-level :p:

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Reply 2

Le_désir

1

Sociology is a boring subject. Too much essay work. And too many things to learn. You learn about sociological things such as family, and all these funny terms to it , and u learn about education as an As level next year i will tell u what A2 sociology is about. but sociology is a boring subject full of c***p. :biggrin:

Reply 3

kellywood_5

17

sexysax

I'm still wondering that myself, and I've done the A-level :p:

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Lol I was going to say exactly the same thing! :p:

I totally disagree with ICT.FrEaK though, I found sociology really interesting. Basically you learn about an aspect of society (I did family and education for AS) and how it affects people; for example, all the different types of family and whether the nuclear family (mother, father and 2-3 kids) is better or why girls do better than boys at school. You might also do coursework, where you choose your own research project on anything you like and plan it out. If not, you'll do an exam based on the methodology used by sociologists, ie how they collect data and carry out studies. There is a lot to learn and it's an essay subject. You'll also have to analyse data in the exam, kind of like sources in history.

Reply 4

sexysax

14

Great minds think alike Kelly :p:

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I agree though, I enjoyed Sociology, I was utterly terrible at it but the lessons were fun, probably because they rarely consisted of anything vaguely to do with the exams, heyho :biggrin:

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Reply 5

RJA

2

I will do AS next year, but it's only 3 lessons (2 hours) a week :eek2:

that doesn't seem very long...

The topics we do are:
1. Families and Households/Mass Media
2. Education/Poverty and Welfare
3. Research Methods

Sounds interesting, but I think it will be hard work in the time I've got :p:

Reply 6

Happy1

14

Sociology is the study of society. You look at certain aspects of society and how they change, are affected by other aspects and how they affect us.

i did Mass media (really really interesting!), Education, Crime and Religion. You also have to do theory and methods at both AS and A2, which is the study of how research is carried out. Its pretty boring to be onest but if you get to do coursework at A2, yu get to carry out a study yourself.

Reply 7

Lotte

2

ICT.FrEaK

Sociology is a boring subject. Too much essay work. And too many things to learn. You learn about sociological things such as family, and all these funny terms to it , and u learn about education as an As level next year i will tell u what A2 sociology is about. but sociology is a boring subject full of c***p. :biggrin:

As others in this thread have mentioned, Sociology is the study of society.

Sociology as a subject at A Level is fascinating I think, having just completed it myself on the OCR syllabus. In the first year I learnt about Class, Gender and Race, and how these catagories affects the individual and society. I also learnt about the Family and the Mass Media, and also research methods. In the second year I learnt about Poverty, Education, Crime and Deviance, and Inequalities in the workplace amongst other things.

Yes there are a lot of names, dates and details of studies to learn, but I think that this makes Sociology what it is - learning about the theories and ideas of others [Sociologists and social commentators] and how these ideas affect society.

As well as individual studies, you'll learn about the different schools of thought such as; Marxism, Feminism, Functionalism, Interactionism, Positivism and Postmodernism to name a few.

This subject is very essay-based, but this enables you to express your knowledge and understanding in a useful way. The key to Sociology is to make points about the topic, but then use studies to back up what you are saying.

I like the fact that Sociology not only looks at the past and how things have changed and developed over the years, but it looks at the present and can be a very contemporary subject to study.

Sociology was by far my favorite and strongest subject at A Level (I did Sociology, Psychology and Law). I would highly recommend to anyone that they study Sociology, if they are interested in learning about the way society works and how it affects our daily lives! :wink:

Reply 8

RJA

2

RJA

1. Families and Households/Mass Media
2. Education/Poverty and Welfare
3. Research Methods

Could someone sum up what these topics are like. Did you have a favourite? Which one is most interesting? Thanks alot :smile:

Reply 9

Happy1

14

RJA

Could someone sum up what these topics are like. Did you have a favourite? Which one is most interesting? Thanks alot :smile:

I'll sumarise the AS topics i did for you:

Mass media
Really interesting topic as you get to look at film, newsapers, tv, advertising, internet and even music and what their roles are in society today. The topic looks at how we as an audience are affected by or use the media (e.g. do we go out and buy things that a celebrity endorses). It also lets you look at how groups are portrayed in the media (e.g. disabled villans, token black characters, gay men etc) and how we use things like the internet to get media on demand. The news is also a big part of the course as you look at how it is presented and how we only ever get half the story in newspapers and on tv etc. Like all sociolgical topics, you learn about the theories such as marxism, functionalism, feminism and even postmodernism, and how these theories see the media's effects on society as a whole and on the individual. Its a fascinating topic and the most current one i would say as you can mention nuew technologies such as ipods a lot lol.

Education
The main thing in this topic is learning what the theories and theorists think about education and what its role is in society. You'll get a brief look at the last 100 years in education as well to give some background. I didnt find it as interesting as mass media, but theres still loads of things to cover, such as why certain groups of children underachieve (e.g. afro-carribean boys) and how academy schools and changed funding are affecting education today. Like the media, you look mainly at education's role, and how it affects society and differnt groups within society.

Theory and Methods
Boring as hell to be honest. If you do the exam its even more boring... but its only one module. I did coursework... you have to basically PLAN a piece of sociological research and decide how you'd go about doing it, then write up you aim, chosen methods, sociological context (previous studies similar to it) and problems taht might occur. Not too hard really. You'll be taught about sociological ways of carrying out research and the concepts that are important to think about when doing it (e.g. value freedom, validity, reliability, generalisability etc) and will have to use these concepts in your work. THings like pilot studies and differnt types of sampling are also covered.

Reply 10

RJA

2

Hmmm. I'm not doing coursework. Anyway, it sounds more interesting than AS Psychology - which seems to involve ALOT of memorizing studies etc.

Do you think 2 hours a week is enough, or should I put some of my own time into it?

Reply 11

Lotte

2

RJA

Hmmm. I'm not doing coursework. Anyway, it sounds more interesting than AS Psychology - which seems to involve ALOT of memorizing studies etc.

Do you think 2 hours a week is enough, or should I put some of my own time into it?

2hrs seems a bit low... when I did Sociology, Psychology and Law at A Level, I had 5hrs a week for each subject at least! (so around 15hrs plus 2hrs tutorial per week!) :eek:

Reply 12

Peacey

7

RJA

Hmmm. I'm not doing coursework. Anyway, it sounds more interesting than AS Psychology - which seems to involve ALOT of memorizing studies etc.

Do you think 2 hours a week is enough, or should I put some of my own time into it?

For an A-Level, you should be having about 4.5 hours a week - so this is lots under. Its unlikely that you'll do all of the topics you listed, more likely it will be:

•

Family OR Mass Media

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Education OR Poverty and Welfare

•

Research Methods

Even with this setup, 2 hours is very low and you'll need to do a fair bit of extra reading.