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Sociology aims to develop your knowledge of societies and to give you a unique and critical understanding of how people live, behave and work together in groups. Sociologists want to understand the behaviour of people in terms of the age, gender, social class and other groups they belong to.
Sociology teaches you to question the world around you, as you attempt to understand why the world is the way it is. While doing this, you will also learn skills such as evaluation of theories, essay techniques, how to respond to information and discussion methods.
Not really as people are complex beings! You will need to learn the language of sociology and develop skills to answer questions. However, human behaviour is fascinating and you will find class discussions interesting. Remember, you are a member of society and you can bring to your lessons a range of personal experiences and knowledge which will be useful in helping you to understand social behaviour.
The layout of the GCSE (Specification: OCR) course is as follows. Students complete three units over the course of two years.
Unit 1 constitutes 25% as does Unit 3. Both these units make up the programme of study in the students first year (Year 10).
Unit 2 constitutes 50% and takes up the entire programme of study in Year 11. The course is 100% examination.
In this Unit you develop the basic tools needed as part of the Sociologist’s toolkit, which include both the use of research methods and the application of key terminology to examine and assess different phenomena.
In this Unit the themes of culture, socialisation and identity are developed through the study of three topics; the Family, Mass Media and Crime & Deviance
In this Unit you will be given two Investigations to study prior to the exam. You will need to be able to explain, interpret and evaluate the Investigations using the knowledge you have gained from Unit 1.
AS-level sociology
Students follow the AQA specification completing two units. One unit is ‘applied’ (Education with Research Methods, weighted 60%), meaning students are introduced to the tools sociologists use in their research and have a go at using these themselves during part of the course. Elsewhere students are expected to learn/research different theories/perspectives on behaviour from leading Sociologists. At AS, students also study a unit on Families and Households (weighted 40%). Lessons consist of seminar discussions, ICT research, audio-visual and interactive resources, reading and comprehension and essay technique. Both units are assessed by written examinations at the end of the academic year.
Assessment is weighted 60/40 at the end of both AS and A2 as indicated above. This means that units weighing 60% are assessed by a lengthier exam paper with more components.
Why do girls achieve better than boys at school? Why are African-Caribbean males over-represented in our prisons? Why is television to blame for teenage anorexia? Why do women still do more work around the home than men?
If you would be interested in discussing some of the answers behind these questions and would have an opinion to share, then sociology may just be the right subject for you. A respected academic subject, Sociology nurtures great minds for careers as diverse as marketing, advertising, media and education. The beauty is, everything we need to become sociologists is in the world around us making it highly accessible to all.
"The beauty is, everything we need to become sociologists is in the world around us making it highly accessible to all."