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AQA AS Sociology Unit 1 & 2 OLD SPECIFICATION [RESITS]

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Original post by xxvine
What did you get last year


A high B 1 mark away from an A, wbu
Original post by mariaa17
A high B 1 mark away from an A, wbu


A in family and low B in education
Why did you retake both papers
Also what are you revising all topics ?
Original post by xxvine
A in family and low B in education
Why did you retake both papers
Also what are you revising all topics ?


I need an A and no I'm not revising all topics. Ive gotten model essays for all answers and I'm just revising from them
Original post by mariaa17
I need an A and no I'm not revising all topics. Ive gotten model essays for all answers and I'm just revising from them


What topics you revising
How do you structure the 20 marker
What i predicted, so ethnicity, marxism + class(internal+external)..
+ for methods, I'm revising interviews, questionnaires,documents and briefly covering choice of research topic and observations
+ for methods in context, just going through model essays

Well for each of the questions its actually structured differentl because different theories have different criticisms which then lead to different amounts of points you would make.. I would say aim to get 3-4 case studies in an essay, criticise atleast 4 points and make sure u know ur facts. You should make essay plans to prep yourself to know what ur gonna write beforehand. Check mark schemes for certain questions so you know you get all the good stuff in. And thats literally it. Really hoping they don't give us a hard paper tomorrow... How much have u gotten done in ur revision?
Anyone have any predictions for education tomorrow??
What do we reckon will be tomorrow's 12 and 20 marker on the education paper?
Original post by IzzyWalker
What do we reckon will be tomorrow's 12 and 20 marker on the education paper?


Original post by naomid123
Anyone have any predictions for education tomorrow??


20 marker: ethnicity, marxism + class(internal+external)
12 marker: gender/social policy (not sure though)
Research methods 20 marker: highly likely: interviews/experiments/documents/questionnaires, less likely chance of coming up: choice of research methods/ observations, no chance of coming up: official statistics
Original post by mariaa17
20 marker: ethnicity, marxism + class(internal+external)
12 marker: gender/social policy (not sure though)
Research methods 20 marker: highly likely: interviews/experiments/documents/questionnaires, less likely chance of coming up: choice of research methods/ observations, no chance of coming up: official statistics


What do you mean by...ethnicity, Marxism AND class....or one of the three? :smile:
can someone send me model answers on research methods in context please, idk how to write them :frown:((
Original post by IzzyWalker
What do you mean by...ethnicity, Marxism AND class....or one of the three? :smile:


One of the three. Ethnicity it can be a simple one like assess ethnic differences in educational achievement, or it could be specific like Asses the claim that “ethnic differences in educational achievement are primarily the result of school factors” - two questions which could come up for ethnic differences but slightly worded differently maybe

Marxism- assess marxism contribution to education or maybe specific so they could ask Using material from item a and elsewhere, assess the view that the role of education is “to reproduce a labour force for capitalism”

Class- The internal one can only be one poss question or it could be specific on labelling

Class- The external one can be on cultural deprivation or material deprivation or home background in general.
Reply 211
Original post by mariaa17
I need an A and no I'm not revising all topics. Ive gotten model essays for all answers and I'm just revising from them


Hiya could you please upload all of your model essays for education research moethods and context please so stressed out


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Original post by mariaa17
One of the three. Ethnicity it can be a simple one like assess ethnic differences in educational achievement, or it could be specific like Asses the claim that “ethnic differences in educational achievement are primarily the result of school factors” - two questions which could come up for ethnic differences but slightly worded differently maybe

Marxism- assess marxism contribution to education or maybe specific so they could ask Using material from item a and elsewhere, assess the view that the role of education is “to reproduce a labour force for capitalism”

Class- The internal one can only be one poss question or it could be specific on labelling

Class- The external one can be on cultural deprivation or material deprivation or home background in general.


You know for the Marxist one what would you use to critercise it?
Functionalism and new right ?
Reply 213
With ethnicity and class how do you evaluate? For example if the question was ethnicity would you evaluate by saying on the other hand class has a superior influence on educational achievement
Original post by Samz15
With ethnicity and class how do you evaluate? For example if the question was ethnicity would you evaluate by saying on the other hand class has a superior influence on educational achievement

That's a good point
People who asked me for model essays this is the only one i have on my laptop, the rest are written up. Sorry but hope it helps xx

Assess the view that the main function of the education system is to reproduce and legitimise social inequalities(18/20 marks)-

Many sociologists, such as Marxists and Feminists, would suggest that the main function of the education system is to reproduce and legitimise social inequalities. However, many other sociologists, such as Functionalists, would disagree with this view, instead believing that its main function is socialisation or to select and prepare students for the workplace.

Marxist sociologists, such as Louis Althusser, would suggest that the education system is an ideological state apparatus that reproduces and legitimises social inequalities. It is reproduced through the teachings to generation after generation and is legitimised by teaching working-class students to accept that inequality is inevitable. Bowles and Gintis also see the role of the education system in capitalst society as reproducing an obedient, exploitable workforce that will accept social inequality as inevitable and fair. Gintis argues that the education system creates many myths, including the “myth of meritocracy”. This is an idea, although untrue, is designed to create a particular way of thinking- in this case, to justify inequality in education and capitalist society.

Also, Bowles and Gintis refer to the correspondence principle being taught through the hidden curriculum. The correspondence principle refers to the similarities between school and the workplace and how education is the long shadow of work. This is taught through the hidden curriculum as the rules of school teach students conformity, obedience and time-management: skills that are essential in the workplace.Through the everyday workings of the school, pupils accept hierarchy, competition, alienation etc. It becomes simply the normal way to think. Willis rejects Bowles and Gintis’s version of the correspondence principle. Rather than the lads passively accepting ruling-class ideology, such as the myth of meritocracy, he found that working-class pupils may resist attempts to indoctrinate them in school. The lads formed a distinct counter-culture that was opposed to the school. They fouted the school’s rules e.g. by smoking. For the lads such acts of defiance were ways of resisting the school’s authority. For Willis, the irony is that by resisting the school’s ideology, the lads’ counter school culture guarantees that they will fail, thereby ensuring they end up in the manual work that capitalism needs someone to perform. Thus, their resistance to schools ends up reproducing class inequality.


Paul Willis’ study of the lads further supports the idea that the main function of the education system is to reproduce social inequalities as the 12 working class lads he observed rejected school and formed an anti-school subculture as they believed that they were only going to go into manual jobs and therefore thought that the education system was pointless. This meant that they would achieve the destiny the education system wanted them to. Feminist sociologists, such as Angela McRobbie, would also argue that the main function of the education system is to reproduce and legitimise social inequalities, as they believe that it serves to benefit males and legitimises a patriarchal society.

Internal factors within the school, such as labeling, teacher racism and an ethnocentric curriculum, also serve to reproduce and legitimise ethnicity inequalities with black pupils subsequently achieving poorly in comparison to white pupils. However, these Marxist ideas have been largely criticised. Bowles and Gintis take a deterministic view; they assume that pupils have no free will and passively accept indoctrination. This approach fails to explain why pupils ever reject the school’s values, as shown in Paul Willis’ study. Critical modernists such as Raymond morrow and Carlos Torres also criticise Marxists for an approach that sees class as key inequality, whilst ignoring other social inequalities such as gender and ethnicity.

However, functionalist sociologists, such as Emile Durkheim, would disagree with the idea that the main function of the education system is to reproduce and legitimise social inequalities as they believe that the main function is, in fact, socialisation. Durkheim believes that the education system functions to create social solidarity: it socialises students into society’s norms and values- a shared value consensus. This allows for greater co-operation for the future workforce. Also, Talcott Parsons, another functionalist sociologist, believes that the main aim of the education system is socialisation through acting as a bride between the family and wider society. In the family, a child is judged on particularistic standards and their status is ascribed, However in the workplace, you are judged on universalistic standards and your status is achieved. Therefore, the education system acts to prepare students for this and socialise them into this way of thinking. However, the functionalist idea of socialisation has been largely criticised. Functionalist see education as a process that instills the shared values of society as a whole, but Marxists argue that education in capitalist society only transmits the ideology of a minority- the ruling class.

Furthermore, other functionalists, such as Davis and Moore, believe that the main function of the education system is to select and prepare people for work. They argue that a meritocratic education system allows everyone to compete equally. Davis and Moore’s idea of role allocation refers to the idea that through setting and streaming, the education systems sifts and sorts people according to their ability to ensure that the most talented people get the most important jobs. This suggests that everybody has an equal opportunity to gain the most important and best paid jobs, as everybody has had the same opportunity.This is supported by Durkheim’s belief that the education system functions to teach specialist skills in order to allocate people to jobs best suited to their abilities for the social division of labour. He believes that by placing students into different areas of education, such as vocational education, they are being taught the necessary skills they need to contribute to society. However, the functionalist idea that the education system functions to prepare people for work has been largely criticised. Unlike Davis and Moore, the New Right argue that the state education system fails to prepare young people adequately for work. This is because state control of education discourages efficiency, competition and choice.

In conclusion it can be argued that the education system is there to justify and reproduce social inequalities that has been created thus allowing students to be no further forward when trying to prosper in a system that does not want them to succeed. However from a functionalist perspective it can be seen that every child has an equal opportunity to succeed and that it creates an opportunity for working class children to move up the class system.
Assess the importance of home factors in creating ethnic differences in educational achievement 16/20 - another one

There are inequalities in the educational achievements of different ethnic groups. Studies and explanations show that Indian and Chinese students are with no doubt achieving the best grades, whereas Black, Pakistani and Bangladeshi students are under-achieving. A student’s home and cultural background contribute in creating ethnic differences in educational achievement. This essay is going to assess the importance of home factors in creating ethnic difference in educational achievement.

According to Mori Poll, white parents showed less interest in education than other ethnic groups that had higher expectations. However this may be true for Chinese and Indian students that are achieving well, but false for Black, Bangladeshi and Pakistani students that are under- achieving.


Bereiter and Engleman put forward cultural and linguistic deprivation as an explanation of the under achievement of ethnic minority. The culture and language of black students is seen as deficient and lacking background knowledge as well as experience required for educational success. This view attracts a criticism because Baratz argues that black students are not culturally deprived but they are culturally different. Similarly Troyna and Williams support Baratz because they disagree with Bereiter and Engleman and argue that black speech is not inferior, but it is the teachers and the school that don’t accept and value their language. However, this leaves black students at a disadvantage because the education system fails to recognise their culture as a result creating ethnic differences in educational achievement.


Social class has a huge impact on creating ethnic differences in educational achievement. Indian and Chinese students often come from middle class families were they have educational values and strive for the best, whereas Black, Pakistani and Bangladeshi come from working class families where they may not have educational values and are usually materially and culturally deprived. Therefore this shows that social class plays a major role in creating ethnic differences in educational achievement because middle class families have more educational values than working class families.

Black students often come from lone parent families, therefore they lack a male role model (boys in particular), which means that they might not cope well to authority; according to Moynihan, black students are inadequately socialised leading to failure and under-achievement in school. However, Driver critics this as he argues that black families encourage their children to be successful and independent in order to achieve well in school. In overall Moynihan suggest that family structures could be a reason for creating ethnic differences in educational achievement.

On the other hand, some internal factors help in creating ethnic differences in educational achievement such as labelling and racism. Connolly found that teachers have negative views on black boys and they label them as underachievers. Teachers punish this group more harshly than any other groups. He also found that Asian students were also labelled but this time as keen, passive and conformist. They regarded the boys as keen and academic when they misbehaved, they were seen as silly or immature rather than threatening. Other boys picked on them to assert their own masculinity and excluded them from playing football. Connolly’s study stresses the point that black student’s underachievement is due to racism and negative labelling from teachers. However Asian students are labelled positively, but not all Asian students are achieving well because Pakistani and Bangladeshi students are under achieving and this however shows that possibly other factors contribute in creating ethnic difference in educational achievement. In addition sociologist Sewell’s research demonstrates that the majority of teachers do not label black boys negatively. Most of these boys were conformist and therefore racism is a significant cause of underachievement than membership of pupil subculture. Studies of pupil sub culture challenges stereotypes of African Caribbean pupils for instance Fuller’s study of black girls shows how they keep a positive self-image despite the negative way they are labelled. Fuller’s study shows that even though teachers label minority students negatively, they do not always live up to their label (self-fulfilling prophecy). Fuller’s work shows that students can resist teacher negative labelling even if it does exist which many interactionist studies fail to recognise or acknowledge this. Studies and evidence indicate that teachers could be a vital link in the creation of ethnic difference in educational achievement.

The education system fails to meet the needs of ethnic minorities which leads to ethnic segregation in schools. Hatcher found that the schools weren’t openly racist, but schools gave less priority to race issues and failed to deal with racist behaviour. Hatcher’s study clearly emphasizes institutional racism where racism is not intentional, but built into the policies of organisation. However this shows that home factors do play a huge part in creating ethnic differences in education, but other factors could be more important in creating ethnic differences in educational achievement.


The weight of the evidence suggests that home factors such as family structure, language and social class do play a major role in creating ethnic differences in educational achievement because the education system fails to recognise the culture and language of other minorities, leaving them at a disadvantage. However it can be argued that other internal factors such as racism and labelling do contribute in creating ethnic differences in educational achievement because Connolly’s study shows that black boys were labelled negatively as underachievers therefore teachers didn’t have high expectations for them because of their label. Connolly’ study brings about the idea of ethnic segregation because he also found that Asian students were also labelled but in a positive way, though not all Asian students are achieving. This sums up the idea that internal factors could also play an important part in creating ethnic differences in educational achievement.
Original post by mariaa17
People who asked me for model essays this is the only one i have on my laptop, the rest are written up. Sorry but hope it helps xx

Assess the view that the main function of the education system is to reproduce and legitimise social inequalities(18/20 marks)-

Many sociologists, such as Marxists and Feminists, would suggest that the main function of the education system is to reproduce and legitimise social inequalities. However, many other sociologists, such as Functionalists, would disagree with this view, instead believing that its main function is socialisation or to select and prepare students for the workplace.

Marxist sociologists, such as Louis Althusser, would suggest that the education system is an ideological state apparatus that reproduces and legitimises social inequalities. It is reproduced through the teachings to generation after generation and is legitimised by teaching working-class students to accept that inequality is inevitable. Bowles and Gintis also see the role of the education system in capitalst society as reproducing an obedient, exploitable workforce that will accept social inequality as inevitable and fair. Gintis argues that the education system creates many myths, including the “myth of meritocracy”. This is an idea, although untrue, is designed to create a particular way of thinking- in this case, to justify inequality in education and capitalist society.

Also, Bowles and Gintis refer to the correspondence principle being taught through the hidden curriculum. The correspondence principle refers to the similarities between school and the workplace and how education is the long shadow of work. This is taught through the hidden curriculum as the rules of school teach students conformity, obedience and time-management: skills that are essential in the workplace.Through the everyday workings of the school, pupils accept hierarchy, competition, alienation etc. It becomes simply the normal way to think. Willis rejects Bowles and Gintis’s version of the correspondence principle. Rather than the lads passively accepting ruling-class ideology, such as the myth of meritocracy, he found that working-class pupils may resist attempts to indoctrinate them in school. The lads formed a distinct counter-culture that was opposed to the school. They fouted the school’s rules e.g. by smoking. For the lads such acts of defiance were ways of resisting the school’s authority. For Willis, the irony is that by resisting the school’s ideology, the lads’ counter school culture guarantees that they will fail, thereby ensuring they end up in the manual work that capitalism needs someone to perform. Thus, their resistance to schools ends up reproducing class inequality.


Paul Willis’ study of the lads further supports the idea that the main function of the education system is to reproduce social inequalities as the 12 working class lads he observed rejected school and formed an anti-school subculture as they believed that they were only going to go into manual jobs and therefore thought that the education system was pointless. This meant that they would achieve the destiny the education system wanted them to. Feminist sociologists, such as Angela McRobbie, would also argue that the main function of the education system is to reproduce and legitimise social inequalities, as they believe that it serves to benefit males and legitimises a patriarchal society.

Internal factors within the school, such as labeling, teacher racism and an ethnocentric curriculum, also serve to reproduce and legitimise ethnicity inequalities with black pupils subsequently achieving poorly in comparison to white pupils. However, these Marxist ideas have been largely criticised. Bowles and Gintis take a deterministic view; they assume that pupils have no free will and passively accept indoctrination. This approach fails to explain why pupils ever reject the school’s values, as shown in Paul Willis’ study. Critical modernists such as Raymond morrow and Carlos Torres also criticise Marxists for an approach that sees class as key inequality, whilst ignoring other social inequalities such as gender and ethnicity.

However, functionalist sociologists, such as Emile Durkheim, would disagree with the idea that the main function of the education system is to reproduce and legitimise social inequalities as they believe that the main function is, in fact, socialisation. Durkheim believes that the education system functions to create social solidarity: it socialises students into society’s norms and values- a shared value consensus. This allows for greater co-operation for the future workforce. Also, Talcott Parsons, another functionalist sociologist, believes that the main aim of the education system is socialisation through acting as a bride between the family and wider society. In the family, a child is judged on particularistic standards and their status is ascribed, However in the workplace, you are judged on universalistic standards and your status is achieved. Therefore, the education system acts to prepare students for this and socialise them into this way of thinking. However, the functionalist idea of socialisation has been largely criticised. Functionalist see education as a process that instills the shared values of society as a whole, but Marxists argue that education in capitalist society only transmits the ideology of a minority- the ruling class.

Furthermore, other functionalists, such as Davis and Moore, believe that the main function of the education system is to select and prepare people for work. They argue that a meritocratic education system allows everyone to compete equally. Davis and Moore’s idea of role allocation refers to the idea that through setting and streaming, the education systems sifts and sorts people according to their ability to ensure that the most talented people get the most important jobs. This suggests that everybody has an equal opportunity to gain the most important and best paid jobs, as everybody has had the same opportunity.This is supported by Durkheim’s belief that the education system functions to teach specialist skills in order to allocate people to jobs best suited to their abilities for the social division of labour. He believes that by placing students into different areas of education, such as vocational education, they are being taught the necessary skills they need to contribute to society. However, the functionalist idea that the education system functions to prepare people for work has been largely criticised. Unlike Davis and Moore, the New Right argue that the state education system fails to prepare young people adequately for work. This is because state control of education discourages efficiency, competition and choice.

In conclusion it can be argued that the education system is there to justify and reproduce social inequalities that has been created thus allowing students to be no further forward when trying to prosper in a system that does not want them to succeed. However from a functionalist perspective it can be seen that every child has an equal opportunity to succeed and that it creates an opportunity for working class children to move up the class system.

Can you really write that in 30 mins lol?
Original post by xxvine
Can you really write that in 30 mins lol?


Omg loll i don't know..
Original post by mariaa17
20 marker: ethnicity, marxism + class(internal+external)
12 marker: gender/social policy (not sure though)
Research methods 20 marker: highly likely: interviews/experiments/documents/questionnaires, less likely chance of coming up: choice of research methods/ observations, no chance of coming up: official statistics


On what basis did you make these predictions e.g. choice of research method less likely? :smile:
Cuz i was thinking its due to come as being practical factor or so then experiment

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