20 | Health: Part 1

Although Health may not be the most popular option on the A-level Sociology Spec. (and is probably next in line for the chop when they finally reduce the syllabus to the barest of bare bones) it’s surprisingly interesting – something I discovered when researching this chapter because, like the majority of Sociology teachers, it’s not […]

Trial: And Error: Online version

While PowerPoint is fine for displaying via desktop devices it’s not quite so clever when it comes to the different devices, from tablets to mobiles, potentially being used inside and outside the a-level classroom. If, therefore, you want a portable (html5) version of the Sociological Detectives Research Process Simulation that has the same functionality as […]

Family Relocation: A Neglected Dimension of Power?

When looking at power relationships within families there are a number of fairly-obvious areas – such as domestic labour and violence (both physical and sexual) – that tend to receive most of the critical focus at A-level. While not suggesting this “dark side of the family” is somehow unimportant, insignificant or unworthy of so much […]

Free Resources: Napier Press

It’s probably fair to say that “A-level Sociology” by Webb et al is one of the best-selling textbooks for the AQA Specification and if you follow this Spec. or, more importantly perhaps, use this book the resources available on the Napier Press web site should come in handy. If you don’t use this text the […]

Trial: And Error Frontend

In response to quite literally no-one asking for it, we’ve created a Frontend – what people in The Olde Days laughingly used to call “a Menu” – for the Research Process sim. This brings together three elements of a possible lesson (the Simulation PowerPoint, Hypothetico-Deductive PowerPoint and “Nature of Science” pdf) in one handy, easy […]

19 | Religion: Part 4

The “secularisation debate” is one of the perennial themes in the sociology of religion and this chapter examining the strength of religion in society is mainly given-over to an outline and evaluation of the two main sides to the argument: 1. Evidence indicating the secularisation of society examines concepts of institutional, practical and ideological religious […]

18 | Religion: Part 3

The third chapter in our trawl through the murky waters of organised (and disorganised, come to that) religion looks at the relationship between religion and social position in two broad ways: Firstly terms of the so-called (by me at least) “CAGE” variables: class, age, gender and ethnicity. This section both outlines the relationship between each […]

17 | Religion: Part 2

No sociological analysis of religion would be complete without looking at the role it plays in society and, as luck would have it, this particular chapter examines the role of religion from a number of different perspectives – both inclusive and exclusive – whose main ideas are outlined and briefly evaluated: • Functionalist • Neo-Functionalist […]

Mind Changers

Mind Changers was a long-running BBC Radio series broadcast between 2003 – 2015 that “explored the development of the science of psychology during the 20th century” – something achieved through a series of 30-minute interviews with / about some of the major psychological thinkers of the past century. The 33 episodes currently in the BBC […]

Chinese Parents’ Involvement in Children’s Education

Regular readers of this blog will be aware that from time-to-time we’ve been able to feature research done by Richard Driscoll’s Sociology A-level students at the Shenzhen College of International Education in China and the latest study to come our way, by Ma Jia Ying, looks at the involvement of Chinese parents in decisions made […]