SociologyQ&A by dot point

Component 3 Section B: functionalist explanations of crime (Durkheim's anomie and the functions of crime, Merton's strain theory) and subcultural explanations (Cohen's status frustration, Cloward and Ohlin's differential opportunity).

Component 3 Section B: globalisation and crime (transnational organised crime, green crime, state crime), the media and crime (representation, moral panics and deviancy amplification), and surveillance and punishment (Foucault).

Component 3 Section B: interactionist labelling theory (Becker, Lemert, Cicourel, the deviancy amplification spiral) and Marxist and critical criminology, including the selective enforcement of law and the crimes of the powerful.

Component 3 Section B: defining crime and deviance, and the measurement of crime through official statistics, victim surveys and self-report studies, including the dark figure of crime and the social construction of crime statistics.

Component 3 Section B: right realism (rational choice, broken windows) and left realism (relative deprivation, marginalisation, subculture), control theory (Hirschi), and feminist and gender explanations of crime (Heidensohn, Carlen, Adler).

Component 1 Section B: demographic change and its impact on family life, including changes in the birth rate, death rate, life expectancy, the ageing population and migration, and their effects on family structure.

Component 1 Section B: family diversity and changing patterns of family life, including the decline of marriage, the rise of cohabitation, divorce, lone-parent and reconstituted families, and the postmodern view of family choice.

Component 1 Section B: the functions of the family in contemporary society, including the functionalist, Marxist, feminist and New Right perspectives on what the family does and whom it benefits.

Component 1 Section B: power, decision-making and domestic violence within families, and the social construction of childhood, including historical change and contemporary debates about the position of children.

Component 1 Section B: conjugal roles and the domestic division of labour, including the march of progress view of the symmetrical family, feminist critiques, and the concepts of the dual burden and triple shift.

Component 3 Section A: the concept of globalisation in its economic, cultural and political dimensions, and the competing theoretical positions of hyperglobalists (optimists), pessimists (sceptics) and transformationalists.

Component 3 Section A: the impact of globalisation on culture and identity, including cultural homogenisation and Americanisation, McDonaldisation, cultural imperialism, and the alternative of cultural hybridity and glocalisation.

Component 3 Section A: surveillance and the digital social world, including Foucault's disciplinary power and the panopticon, the surveillance society, big data, and surveillance capitalism.

Component 3 Section A: the digital divide and digital inequality, and the construction of identity online, including the presentation of self, online community and the postmodern view of consumption and hyperreality.

Component 3 Section A: the digital revolution and new media, including the shift to digital and social media, the network society, and the optimistic and pessimistic views of the digital social world.

Component 2: observation (participant and non-participant, overt and covert) and experiments (laboratory, field, comparative and natural), their practical, ethical and theoretical strengths and limitations, and concepts including the Hawthorne effect and going native.

Component 2: the philosophical foundations of sociological research, including positivism and interpretivism, primary and secondary data, quantitative and qualitative data, and the stages of the research process.

Component 2: sampling techniques and the sampling frame, the key concepts of validity, reliability, representativeness, generalisability and operationalisation, triangulation, and the ethical principles governing sociological research.

Component 2: secondary sources of data, including official statistics (hard and soft) and documents (personal, public and historical), content analysis, and the practical, ethical and theoretical strengths and limitations of secondary data.

Component 2: self-report methods including questionnaires (closed and open) and interviews (structured, unstructured, semi-structured and group), their practical, ethical and theoretical strengths and limitations, and the interviewer effect.

Component 2: age inequality, including the disadvantages faced by the young and the old in work, income and status, ageism, and the functionalist, Marxist, Weberian and interactionist explanations of age-based inequality.

Component 2: ethnic inequality, including patterns in employment, income and the criminal justice system, the concept of institutional racism, and the theoretical explanations (functionalist, Marxist, Weberian and intersectional) of ethnic disadvantage.

Component 2: gender inequality, including the gender pay gap, the glass ceiling, vertical and horizontal segregation, the dual labour market, and the feminist explanations (liberal, radical, Marxist and difference) of women's life chances.

Component 2: social class inequality, including patterns in income, wealth and life chances, the concepts of embourgeoisement, proletarianisation, the underclass and the precariat, and debates about the continuing significance of class.

Component 2: theories of social stratification and inequality, including the functionalist, Marxist, Weberian, New Right and postmodernist perspectives on why societies are unequal.

Component 1 Section A: the concepts of culture, norms, values, roles and status, the different types of culture (high, popular, folk, mass, global, consumer and subculture), and the relationship between culture and identity.

Component 1 Section A: the concept of social control, the distinction between formal and informal agencies of social control, and the role of positive and negative sanctions in securing conformity.

Component 1 Section A: the process of socialisation, the distinction between primary and secondary socialisation, and the role of the agencies of socialisation (family, education, peer group, media, religion and the workplace) in transmitting culture.

Component 1 Section A: the social construction of identity, the distinction between personal and social identity, and the sources of identity (social class, gender, ethnicity, age, sexuality, disability and nationality), including hybridity and the postmodern view of fluid identity.

Component 1 Section A: the nature versus nurture debate, the sociological emphasis on nurture and socialisation, and the implications of cases of feral and isolated children for understanding the development of human behaviour.

Synoptic: the feminist theories (liberal, radical, Marxist and difference or intersectional) and the interactionist or social action perspective (Mead, Goffman, Becker), and how each challenges structural consensus and conflict theory.

Synoptic: the structural consensus theory of functionalism (Durkheim, Parsons, Merton) and the structural conflict theory of Marxism (Marx, Gramsci, Althusser), and the debate between consensus and conflict views of society.

Synoptic: the debate between modernity and postmodernity, including postmodernist theory (Lyotard, Baudrillard) and theories of late or liquid modernity (Giddens, Beck, Bauman), and the implications for sociology.

Synoptic: the structure versus agency debate, the question of whether sociology can be scientific and value-free (Weber, Gouldner, Becker), and the relationship between sociology, values and social policy.