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AS and A Level: Sociological Differentiation & Stratification

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UK trends - gender

  1. 1 Men tend to outperform women in terms of income, wealth, promotion at work; they are more likely to have full time and /or permanent contracts.
  2. 2 In the home men do less housework than women and are much less likely to suffer domestic violence than women. Men are more likely to have control of finances and power in decision making in the family.
  3. 3 Women have better life chances in terms of life expectancy, preferential treatment by courts when awarding custody of children, some evidence of greater leniency in sentencing, more time off paid work with their children, lower suicide rates and are doing better in schools.

Key UK trends - social class

  1. 1 At work, those in the working class are more likely to have a below average paid job, a temporary contract and work part time.
  2. 2 In terms of policing and the criminal justice system, the working class are more likely to be stopped and searched by the police and to be arrested.
  3. 3 In the family people from working class backgrounds are more likely to marry younger and to get divorced.
  4. 4 In terms of health the working class are more likely, more likely to smoke, to miscarry their baby, to die of an accident at work and to die before their first birthday.
  5. 5 In education the working class are more likely to be placed in lower streams or sets at school, to leave school with fewer educational qualifications, and much less likely than the middle class to go to university.

Key UK trends - ethnicity

  1. 1 African Caribbean Britons are at high risk of being stopped and searched, getting longer custodial sentences, being excluded from school, being unemployed, living in a single parent family and achieving the lowest average GCSE scores.
  2. 2 British Bangladeshis and Pakistanis have the highest rates of poverty, living in cramped housing and female unemployment.
  3. 3 British Indians and British Chinese have higher than average educational success rates.
  4. 4 White Britons have better life chances than ethnic minorities in nearly all areas, with the exception of the British Indians and British Chinese.
  5. 5 There are significant differences WITHIN ethnic groups, so men and women, people from different social classes and ages have significantly different life chances.

  • Marked by Teachers essays 8
  • Peer Reviewed essays 5
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  1. Demography topic revision notes. The study of populations and their characteristics is called demography.

    The total fertility rate The factors determining the birth rate are, firstly, the proportion of women who are of childbearing age (usually taken to be 15-44) and, secondly, how fertile they are - that is, how many children they have. The total fertility rate (TFR) is the average number of children women will have during their fertile years. The UK's TFR has risen since 2001, but it is still much lower than in the past. From an all-time low of 1.63 children per woman in 2001 it rose to 1.84 by 2006.

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  2. The education system is meritocratic

    This meritocracy is said to sift and sort perspective students into their correct positions as an adult in society. According to Parsons school is simply the bridge between the family or primary socialisation and entry to employment. He views the education system as a positive system of placing the best students at the top both in school and eventually the work place. This idea is supported by Davis and Moore (1945) who say that meritocracy is the system which social institutes (this includes school)

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  3. - APPROACHES IN PSYCHOLOGY

    F. Skinner investigated operant conditioning using pigeons and rats in Skinner boxes and discovered many of the principles of operant conditioning applied to human beings. Again, operant conditioning can explain abnormal behaviour. For example, adolescents who are ridiculed (punished) for being fat may stop eating to reduce their weight and go on to develop an eating disorder. Abnormal behaviour can be unlearned using the same conditioning principles. For example, Watson & Rayner (1920) proposed to rid Little Albert of his fears by pairing a reward (e.g. a sweet) with the sight of a rat until his fear was extinguished.

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  4. To the study of effect of industrialisation in Kolam village of Raigarh district of Chhattisgarh, I stratified 50 out of 75 households in the village for the survey to find out the situation of villagers, land holding patterns and resource availability be

    Primary data ii. Secondary data 7.2.3. Collection of Primary Data The primary data was done mainly by personal interviews and informal meetings. Primary data is collected at quantitative level and qualitative level. The quantitative data collected is based on individual questionnaires. Qualitative data is collected through focus group discussion, meetings with SHG members and teachers. 7.2.4. Collection of Secondary Data Secondary data pertaining to the Socio-Economic Profile of the study area in terms of the records collected from: Table 1: Secondary Source of data Sl No. Source Data 1 Gram Panchayat Office (Chitwahi) Village level Information 2 Anganwadi Records (Kolam)

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  5. Development in Malaysia

    Because of the different ethnic groups, Malaysia has become a multicultural and multilingual society. During the late 20th century, Malaysia faced rapid development and had experienced an economic boom. The economic growth has transformed Malaysia into a newly industrialised country. As Malaysia is one of the top exporters in natural rubber and palm oil, which is linked to the primary sector, international trade is important to its economy. Manufacturing makes up a major sector of the country's economy; at one time Malaysia was the largest producer of rubber and palm oil in the world.

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  6. Identify current patterns of ill health and inequality in the UK. Explain probable causes of the current patterns of ill health and inequality in the UK (M1)

    These health profiles provide information on health for each local council using key health indicators, which enables comparisons locally, regionally and over a period of time. They help local councils and the NHS decide where to target resources and tackle health inequalities in their local areas. The white paper also asked for an annual health profile for the whole of England, which was first published in 2006. This national health profile provides an opportunity for certain people such as local councillors and directors of public health to compare data from their own local health profile and will influence their planning, commissioning and delivery of public health programmes.

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  7. Sociological theories and Healthcare.

    * The 2nd group is the workers proletariat for example the factory workers Marxists looks at the negative side of society for example:- Marxists sees the bad in everything and sees the society as a whole and not just certain or individual people within the society. Marxists also believes that society is based on disagreement (conflict) between the two classes the proletariat are the working class and the bourgeois are the ruling class. They are interested in the capitalists so cities for example:- * Britain * Western Europe * USA These societies are based on some people who are wanting to make as much money as possible and know they are exploit the working class and pay them low wages.

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  8. Assess the nature and extent of secularization in society today. Evidence surrounding church attendance is one of the most valid arguments in the secularisation debate.

    In modern societies the percentage of people attending church has fallen to around 5%. This is in comparison to just under 40% attendance in 1851. Bruce identified that participation and occurrence in religious ceremonies has decreased substantially, in the 1920s and 1930s, 90% of children were baptized, whereas now figures suggest it is only around 35%. Although this evidence supports secularisation with groups leaving more traditional religions, there has been a growth in NRM's suggesting that society is not becoming secular, it is simply finding an alternative to institutionalized religions. However, this pattern is specific to Britain, and cannot be used for a generalization of the whole world; Christianity is in decline in Europe but significantly increased in Africa, India and Asia.

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  9. nogomet

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  10. Assess the argument that rather than eliminating poverty, the Welfare State has created a form of dependency culture.

    As a result the poor are unable to see the benefits of increasing living standards because they are conditioned to accept their situation and unwilling to make the effort to change it. With this in mind, we can see how the culture of poverty can cause deprivation today. For those within the culture, the ever present feeling of fatalism will continually put these people at a disadvantage as they are ready and able to accept the situation they are faced with.

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  11. Assess the view that cults, sects and new age movement are fringe organisations that are evitable short lived and of little influence in contemporary society.

    Other individuals still seem to drink and smoke and this will never change as society is set on rules which maintain the way people think of life. As of now teenagers drink and will do whatever people say to them so these groups are not having a big influence on them. Many New religious movements have become to die out or most likely form in to a denomination. Usually a sect requires a strong, significant leader but when this leader dies, members of that particular NRM are in confusion of what to do, so many stray and most likely go back into their original way of life in modern society.

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  12. An investigation into people(TM)s belief about Hell

    question their beliefs in the metaphysical.3 And the participants will be selected using opportunity sampling in the library at Sandown High School. This study aims to look at three things: * Whether more males of females believe in Hell * Whether more religious or non-religious people believe in Hell * Whether peoples' belief about Hell affects their life Context # Context Hell and people's beliefs about Hell have always played a substantial part in the foundations of society. There are many views on what Hell is and how it relates to our lives; some, such as evangelicals, believe that Hell

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  13. Changes in the social structure of education and its impact on class and gender inequalities

    Reforms in education since 1944 were aimed to provide "equality of opportunity" (Parsons, 1959, cited in Fulcher & Scott, 2006, p.321) irrespective of social divisions, to provide reward for value of achievements, which is central to an industrial society. The education system was to ensure that ability and effort decided one's place in society, that class or gender would be no barrier to success. The English state education system is, in historical terms, a recent development. At the beginning of the nineteenth century there was no national education system.

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  14. Air Pollution in Dominican Republic

    His efforts alerted the world and it does show that one man can make a difference. Sarah Norman and others talked to over 7 thousand people to prevent drilling in Africa. They went house to house and raised awareness among the people to create a movement. They didn't encounter the difficulties others did but addressed the controversial issue of drilling in Africa. Colleen McCoy spent eight years trying to get a national park, which was 120,000 acres. She was smeared by the media, lost money and almost went bankrupt but never gave up on her cause and with the support of her family and community was successful.

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  15. THE MIDDLE CLASS AS A FIELD OF ETHNOLOGICAL STUDY

    I would also like to thank Pat Young and Lucy Healey for their bibilographical work which proved very useful in putting this article together, and Gaynor Thornell for help with the typing. * instead continue to witness an outpouring of studies of peasants, factory girls, ethnicity, and Islam - not unimportant in themselves, but in their distribution far from fully representative of current trends in the Malay community. As for studies of Malaysia's other main ethnic groups, lamentably fewer in number, the growth of the middle class is similarly largely ignored.

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  16. Underachievement

    This is worsened by the fact that exam questions are written in the elaborated code of language and at a post-16 level, particularly at A level, even more is required of students to understand and respond to questions in this way. As students from ethnic minorities will struggle to achieve this standard as they have not been socialised to speak in this way, their answers are likely to be viewed as less academic than those of middle class students and so they will underachieve.

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  17. Is the Underachievement of Ethnic Minority Children due to a Racist School System?

    I have picked this topic because I feel that education underachievement is a major problem and so is institutional racism. This issue has gained more attention after the racially motivated murder of Stephen Lawrence and the Mancpherson report that followed. I also believe that everyone should be given an equal chance to do his or her best, so it is important to me to find out if racism is the real reason for ethnic minority students underachievement. METHODOLOGY An important issue in my research is how am I going to go about it?

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  18. My sociology coursework is about the segregated conjugal roles between men and women in a household.

    Methodology To prove my hypothesis and answer the aims I will design three different questionnaires. The three questionnaires will be for the following people: 1. 10 married couples that are living together to fill out together. 2. 5 husbands to fill out individually. 3. 5 wives to fill out individually. I am doing different questionnaires to avoid bias. When married couples are participating in my survey together, they may be entirely honest just to please the partner. If I had just asked partners separately again there is a chance of them being biased by making it sound as though they are doing a lot of housework.

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  19. I have decided to base my topic upon police and stereo typing, and whether they treat ethnic minorities differently to white people.

    The MacPherson report defined institutional racism as 'The collective failure of an organisation to provide an appropriate and professional service to people because of their colour, culture or ethnic origin. It can be seen or detected in processes, attitudes and behaviour which amount to discrimination through unwitting prejudice, ignorance, thoughtlessness and racist stereotyping which disadvantage minority ethnic people'. David Mason, a British sociologist, broke the term institutional racism into a number of subdivisions, here are a few of these ; 1.

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  20. Does Multi-Culturalism depend on Removing Ideas of Ethnicity from the Concept of Nation, and Replacing them with Civic Ideas of the Nation?

    (Wieviorka 1998.) The theory of the national state has generally assumed a civic form of nationalism. The ideal of the sovereignty of 'the people' has always had a clear vision of the nature and boundaries of 'the people' who make up the citizens of the state. When one brings the idea of ethnicity into the debate, a conflict arises from the internal contradiction at the heart of the national state between a universal conception of citizenship with its uniform rights and a conception of 'the people' and the ethnic basis where national minorities demand their own rights as members of a community that shares a history which marks themselves off from the dominant ethnie.

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  21. The issue of two interwoven entities - personal identity and ethnicity

    It is important to mention that the different uses of the identity should be singled out. The term "identity" is usually used in reference to three aspects of human experience: firstly, to individuals, human persons; secondly, to the collectivities or groups that are supposed to be individuated (regarded as discrete one from another); and thirdly, to the relationship between these two categories of "identity-bearers," in particular, to the ways in which individuals are thought to incorporate elements of "collective selves" into their unique personal identities (Handler 1994). One can claim that, from the most general point of view, identity is a result of permanent classification imposed upon the world.

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  22. Does Gender Affect Student’s Performances At Key Stage 5 And Beyond?

    has been in decline (UK stat. 1992-1998). Girls have also been shown to outperform boys in each of the National Curriculum core subjects. The most noticeable difference occurs in English. Here 42% of boys gain grades A* to C. In stark contrast 61% of girls gain grades A* to C in English. Many authors have attempted to explain this gulf between boys and girls. It is concluded that girls are more suited to the subject both through nature and nurture.

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  23. Explain the influence of social class and gender on educational achievement

    Furthermore these pupils are more likely to stay on in post-compulsory education, and are more likely to achieve examination passes when at school, and are more likely to gain entrance into a university. These findings are supported in 'Origins and destinations' by Halsey A H, Heath A F and Ridge J M (1990 cited in Haralambos, p253) who based their conclusions on the Oxford Mobility Study. They found clear class differences among 8,529 males born between 1913 and 1952 in England and Wales. The sample included three groupings depending on their fathers' education (service class, intermediate class and working class).

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  24. Which has the greatest impact on educational attainment – gender, social class or ethnicity?

    Therefore IQ tests only measure the ability of the individual who is being tested to conform to the testers personal idea of intelligence. Most sociologists would largely agree that although we inherit a degree of mental intelligence from our parents, our culture and upbringing determine most of our intelligence. When looking at the role of the home in relation to educational attainment sociologists examine the values and behaviour of the parents, the form of language used in the home and the physical condition of the home.

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  25. Black Male perception, of Secondary School Attainment and Opportunities. "Explore reasons for the academic underachievement of black males. To what extent is this due to ethnic differences?"

    These efforts provide specific units, activities, or courses to help these students understand specialised workplace requirements. Thirdly, the specialist workplace introduction of vocational courses within secondary schools is an example of this second initiative. Work experience is still compulsory in the secondary school, not only preparing for the work place but ensuring every single student has enough experience to get at least a low skilled job. The presence of the work experience is the third initiative; it still remains in this secondary school whereas it has been abolished in most schools. LITERATURE REVIEW (SECONDARY RESEARCH) Social context race McGuire.

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Conclusion analysis

Good conclusions usually refer back to the question or title and address it directly - for example by using key words from the title.
How well do you think these conclusions address the title or question? Answering these questions should help you find out.

  1. Do they use key words from the title or question?
  2. Do they answer the question directly?
  3. Can you work out the question or title just by reading the conclusion?

  • Assess the extent to which religion produces social change. Many sociologists such as functionalists and Marxists would argue that religion doesnt affect social change and is a conservative force.

    "In conclusion, many sociologists such as functionalists and Marxists would argue that religion doesn't affect social change and is a conservative force. Functionalists would say religious does this by keeping social solidarity in tact which prevents people needing a change; they also describe people of having a value consensus which is the shared beliefs in society which prevent social change. Marxists would argue that religion is ideological apparatus which distracts the working class from oppression and distracts people from seeing a need for social change. However internationalists would disagree as they see religion as causing radical changes such as the Calvinists being a major factor of the industrial revolution due to their similar ethics. Other sociologists would also argue that religion causes social change such as Neo-Marxist Gramsci, who claims religion is a relative autonomy and allows change to take place."

  • Identify & Discuss The Factors Which Will Influence A Researchers Choice Of Methods

    "In conclusion, there are many different viewpoints on how researchers should choose their methods when studying a topic. While both sides have their pro's and cons, either way can be used. Some circumstances call for one type of view to be used, for example Positivists, while another may need an Interpretivist viewpoint. Maybe a combination of the both can allow better results (triangulation)."

  • Discuss the view that conjugal roles are becoming joint in families.

    "In conclusion time provides the evidence in the last century that there has been a change in the conjugal roles meaning that they have become more equal which could be argued that this is due to the fact that more women are now in paid employment this has made a significant contribution to the way in which women are now portrayed as. They are seen to have a more equal status to men which has changed their position in the family. However this is debate is a complex one and it can also be argued that the equality of these conjugal roles depends a lot on age, class and ethnicity. Paman Sidhu"

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