The Rules of the Game
How “predicted grades” and the “personal statement” contribute to the relative failure of high-performing disadvantaged kids in the “game” of university entrance. While a-level sociology students do a lot of work on education and differential achievement, the narrative in relation to social class tends to focus on “middle class success”, “working class failure” and the […]
Elitist Britain 2019: The educational backgrounds of Britain’s leading people
This latest report from the Sutton Trust looks at the various educational pathways taken by Britain’s elites “from the type of school they attended to where they went to university” to paint a picture of educational and economic inequality across our society. The Summary version of the Report (there’s also a full version you can […]
Aspiring to Succeed? Education and the New Right
One of the key features of New Right approaches to explaining social class differences in educational achievement is the attempt to frame the debate in terms of the qualities possessed by individual actors. This reductionist approach – reducing complex social processes to their apparently simplest and most basic forms – sees success or failure (as […]
Visualising Social Mobility: A Mountain to Climb?
Broadly-speaking, the underlying idea here is to both make the study of social mobility slightly less dull and to replace a somewhat hackneyed, not-to-say, highly misleading visualisation of mobility (“a ladder”) with something a little more dynamic and visually thought-provoking (“climbing a mountain”). Although this post could be more accurately described as a “Lesson Suggestion” […]
Sociology Sim: An Exercise in Inequality
As you may have gathered, I rather like simulations and this is another one I’ve found that can be added to the expanding list. This particular one was created by Chris Andrews and is interesting, at least to me, because its focus on social inequality means it has applications right across the sociological spectrum; you […]
Beat The Bourgeoisie: A Simulation
Long-time readers of this blog may recall that around 18 months ago I posted a series of sociology simulations, under the general title “7 Sims in 7 Days”, one of which, Cards, Cakes and Class, focused on giving students a physical taste of social inequality. However, while I like the basic ideas underpinning the sim, it […]
Yet More Sociology Knowledge Organisers
The Learning Tables and Knowledge Organisers we’ve recently posted were all for the AQA Specification and while there’s a good deal of crossover between this Specification and OCR I thought it would be helpful to those following the latter if they had some KO’s to call their own. These Organisers, all produced by Lucy Cluley, […]
Society Now Magazine
“Society Now” is a free full-colour magazine published four times a year by the Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC) and features a range of articles that “showcase the impact of the social science research” funded by the Council. Although the magazine includes material that’s not necessarily relevant to a-level sociology – the ERSC funds […]
Visual Sociology: Picturing Inequality
As regular readers of this blog will know, I’m a big fan of using graphic material (pictures and illustrations rather than examples of extreme physical violence) to both illustrate sociological ideas and encourage students to think a little more deeply about such ideas and how they can be applied to increase their depth of sociological […]
BBC “Analysis” Podcasts
Over the past 10 years BBC Radio 4’s Analysis series has created a range of podcasts “examining the ideas and forces which shape public policy in Britain and abroad, presented by distinguished writers, journalists and academics”. There are over 200 podcasts to trawl through, many of which won’t be of any interest or use to sociology […]