Eduqas A-Level Sociology Component 1 Section A: Socialisation and Culture, a complete overview

Section A of Eduqas A-Level Sociology Component 1 (Socialisation and Culture) is the compulsory introduction to the discipline, worth 20 marks on the paper. It explains how human beings acquire culture, and everything in the optional topics builds on it. This page maps the five dot points, the perspectives that run through them, and how the paper rewards your answers.

What Section A covers

Section A is organised around the theme of the acquisition of culture: how individuals come to share the norms, values and identity of their society.

• Culture, norms and values. The building blocks of culture (norms, values, beliefs, customs, roles and status), the main types of culture (subculture, high, popular, mass, folk and global), and the central claim that culture is socially constructed and learned.
• Socialisation and its agencies. Primary and secondary socialisation, the agencies that carry it out (family, education, peer group, media, religion, workplace), and the processes of imitation, role models and sanctions.
• The formation of identity. The sources of identity (class, gender, ethnicity, nationality, age, sexuality, disability), personal versus social identity, and the modernist versus postmodernist debate about whether identity is fixed or chosen.
• Social control and conformity. Formal and informal social control, positive and negative sanctions, the agencies of control, and the link between socialisation and conformity.
• The nature versus nurture debate. Biological and sociobiological arguments, the sociological case for nurture, the evidence of feral and isolated children, and the interactionist conclusion.

The perspectives that run through Section A

Eduqas expects you to apply the major perspectives to every topic:

• Functionalism sees culture, socialisation and control as producing a shared value consensus that integrates society (Durkheim, Parsons).
• Marxism sees them as reproducing ideology and the obedience capitalism needs, protecting ruling-class power (Althusser, Bowles and Gintis).
• Feminism stresses gender role socialisation that reproduces patriarchy (Oakley).
• Interactionism stresses that socialisation is active and two-way and that identity and deviance are socially defined through labelling.
• Postmodernism argues identity has become a reflexive project of consumption and lifestyle (Bauman, Giddens).

How the paper is assessed

Component 1 is a 2 hour 30 minute paper worth 120 marks and 40 per cent of the A-level. Section A (20 marks) is compulsory; Sections B and C are the optional substantive topics. The assessment objectives for the A-level are weighted AO1 45 per cent (knowledge and understanding), AO2 35 per cent (application) and AO3 20 per cent (analysis and evaluation). Eduqas uses a small set of command words: Explain (define and develop, or give reasons), Analyse (break an issue into connected parts) and Evaluate (weigh strengths and weaknesses and reach a judgement). The longer Evaluate essays are marked by levels of response.

How to revise Section A

1. Learn the concepts precisely. Mark schemes reward exact use of terms such as norms, values, primary and secondary socialisation, formal and informal control, and personal and social identity.
2. Attach theorists to every topic. Parsons, Oakley, Bowles and Gintis, Bauman and Giddens are the names that turn description into argument.
3. Drill the command words separately. Practise short Explain answers, Analyse answers built from two connected points, and Evaluate essays with a two-sided argument and a judgement.
4. Keep returning to the theme. Tie every dot point back to the acquisition of culture, the spine of the whole component.
5. Use Eduqas papers. Rehearse with the board's own past papers and mark schemes, because the command words and levels-of-response descriptors are board-specific.