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Sociology (9699)
15 sections available · 66 chapters available
Free Sociology (9699) study notes for Cambridge International A Level students. Each chapter covers a key topic with examples and practice prompts you can continue inside the thinka app.
Paper 1 – Socialisation, identity and methods of research
Social identity and change
Types of data, methods and research design
Approaches to sociological research
Research issues
Socialisation and the creation of social identity (AS, Paper 1)
The process of learning and socialisation
Agencies of socialisation and social control
Social control, conformity and resistance
Structure and agency: structuralist and interactionist views
Deviance and non-conformity
Social identity: class, gender, ethnicity and age
Changing identities, globalisation and hybridity
Paper 2 – The Family
Gender equality and experiences of family life
Age and family life
Paper 3 – Education
Education and social mobility
Influences on the curriculum
Intelligence and educational attainment
Social class and educational attainment
Ethnicity and educational attainment
Methods of research (AS, Paper 1)
Types of data: primary, secondary, quantitative, qualitative
Secondary sources: official statistics, documents, digital and media content
Quantitative methods: questionnaires, structured interviews, experiments, content analysis
Qualitative methods: observation, unstructured and group interviews
Stages of research design, sampling and operationalisation
Research approaches: case studies, surveys, ethnography, longitudinal and mixed methods
Positivism, interpretivism and the science debate
Research issues: theoretical, practical and ethical considerations
Paper 4 – Globalisation
Theories of the family and social change (AS, Paper 2)
Functionalist and Marxist perspectives on the family
Feminist responses to functionalist and Marxist accounts
Changing patterns of marriage, cohabitation, divorce and separation
Family and household forms and dimensions of diversity
The nuclear family debate: New Right and postmodernist views
The state and social policy as influences on the family
Family roles and changing relationships (AS, Paper 2)
Gender equality and power in the family
Conjugal roles: housework, childcare and emotion work
Positive and negative experiences of family life
The social construction of childhood
Grandparents, life expectancy and the family
Changing concepts of motherhood and fatherhood
Paper 4 – Media
Paper 4 – Religion
Education and society (A Level only, Paper 3)
Functionalist and Marxist theories of the role of education
New Right and social democratic views on education and the economy
Meritocracy, life chances and social mobility
The social construction of knowledge and influences on the curriculum
Hidden, ethnocentric and gendered curriculum; cultural capital
Education and inequality (A Level only, Paper 3)
Intelligence, IQ testing and educational attainment
Social class and educational attainment: material and cultural factors
In-school factors: labelling, ability grouping and pupil subcultures
Ethnicity and educational attainment
Gender and educational attainment
Globalisation (A Level only, Paper 4 Section A)
Perspectives on globalisation: definitions, dimensions and who benefits
Globalisation and identity: hybridity, cultural defence, convergence
Globalisation, power and politics
Globalisation, poverty and global inequalities
Globalisation and migration
Globalisation and crime
Media (A Level only, Paper 4 Section B)
Traditional media, new media and ownership
Theories of the media and influences on media content
The impact of the new media
Media representations of class, gender, ethnicity and age
Models of media effects
The impact of the media on behaviour
Religion (A Level only, Paper 4 Section C)
Defining religion, measuring belief and religiosity
Functionalist and Marxist accounts of religion and social order
Religion as a source of social change
The secularisation debate
Gender, feminism and religion
Religion and post-modernity: NRMs, New Age and fundamentalism
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