SociologyQ&A by dot point

The Higher Sociology assignment: an independent research report on a sociological topic, what it requires (research question, sources, analysis and a conclusion), and how it is assessed.

Culture, norms, values, roles and status, the idea of cultural diversity, and the nature versus nurture debate about how far human behaviour is innate or learned.

Ethnicity, nationality and identity: the meaning of ethnicity and national identity, how they are formed and expressed, the ideas of multiculturalism and hybrid identity, and how far they are socially constructed.

Gender and identity: the difference between sex and gender, how gender identity is formed through gender-role socialisation, the agents involved, and the debate over how far gender is socially constructed.

Identity and the social construction of identity: personal and social identity, how identities are formed through socialisation and interaction, and the idea that identity is increasingly chosen rather than fixed.

Social class and identity: how class is defined and measured, how class shapes identity and life chances, and the debate over whether class identity is declining in modern society.

Socialisation: how people learn the norms and values of their society, the difference between primary and secondary socialisation, and the main agents of socialisation including the family, education, peers, the media and religion.

The feminist (conflict) perspective: how it explains society through patriarchy and gender inequality, the main types of feminism (liberal, Marxist, radical), and its strengths and weaknesses.

The functionalist (consensus) perspective: how it explains social order, the key thinkers and concepts, and its strengths and weaknesses as a way of understanding human society.

The interactionist (social action) perspective: how it explains society from the bottom up through meanings, labelling and the self, the key concepts, and its strengths and weaknesses compared with structural perspectives.

The Marxist (conflict) perspective: how it explains society through class conflict and economic power, the key concepts of base and superstructure, ideology and false consciousness, and its strengths and weaknesses.

The postmodernist view of a fragmented, media-saturated society of choice and diversity, and the difference between sociological explanations (evidence-based, theoretical) and common-sense explanations of human behaviour.

Observation and experiments in sociology: participant and non-participant observation (covert and overt), and laboratory and field experiments, with their strengths and weaknesses.

Judging sociological research: reliability, validity and representativeness, and the main research ethics including informed consent, confidentiality, avoiding harm and honesty.

The sociological research process and the main types of data: primary and secondary data, and quantitative and qualitative data, with their uses and limitations.

Sampling in sociological research: the target population and sampling frame, the main sampling techniques (random, stratified, quota, snowball and opportunity), and why a representative sample matters.

Survey methods in sociology: questionnaires and the main types of interview (structured, unstructured and semi-structured), with their strengths and weaknesses for reliability, validity and representativeness.

Sociological explanations of crime and deviance: the difference between crime and deviance, and the functionalist, Marxist, interactionist (labelling) and feminist explanations of why crime happens.

Patterns of crime and victimisation: how crime is distributed by class, age, gender and ethnicity, who is most affected by crime, and why official crime statistics may be unreliable.

Responses to crime and inequality: how the criminal justice system responds to crime (punishment and rehabilitation) and how government responds to inequality through social policy and the welfare state, and how effective these responses are.

Social inequality: what it means, the forms it takes (wealth, income, health, education and employment), the evidence for it, and the groups most affected including by class, gender and ethnicity.

Sociological explanations of social inequality: the functionalist, Marxist, feminist and Weberian explanations, and the individualist versus structural debate about the causes of inequality.