A Whole Bundle of Risk

I think it’s fair to say Beck’s concepts of Risk and Risk Society aren’t well-covered at A-level, partly because his ideas are difficult to get across to students and partly because, not to put too fine a point on things, they’re not easy to understand and encapsulate in a few pithy points. Be that as […]

Sociology and Sociological Perspectives

This series of short films, produced by Dallas Telelearning around 10 years ago, provides an introduction to both Sociology (it’s European and America development) and sociological perspectives: functionalism, conflict theory, interactionism and feminism. Although the production and focus generally means the world is seen through American eyes ­ -and some of the illustrative material focused on American politics and culture of the 80’s and 90’s probably won’t mean much to contemporary European audiences – it shouldn’t be difficult for Non-US teachers to focus the theoretical content on things that will resonate more with their particular students.

Introducing Journal Corner

Introducing Journal Corner – the BSA’s new digested read for A-level Sociology.

Daniel Butcher: Sociology

I’ve found it a bit difficult to evaluate the films produced by Sociology Teacher Daniel Butcher, for reasons that should become apparent, so I’m going to depart slightly from the usual blog format and just try to list some of the pluses and minuses.

Ghostsites: Wathistory

WatHistory is a YouTube site I’ve been meaning to write about but, for whatever reason, never got around to doing so until now. I guess I was inspired by the sociology ghostsites theme because this site seems to have something of a chequered history. Although the Twitter account ceased trading in 2018 and the .com website may never […]

Ghostsite: The Sociology Tutor

Every so often I chance upon web sites that have been started by teachers with what seems like a shed-load of initial enthusiasm. They create and distribute lots of free resources in a relatively short space of time and then suddenly just abandon their baby before it’s had a chance to really grow. One of […]

Geographical Profiling Applied: The M25 Rapist

Continuing the recent Crime and Criminology vibe with our films (if you’re interested in Geographic Profiling you might also be interested in it’s better-known counterpart Offender Profiling), this companion-piece to Introducing Geographical Offender Profiling complements the original film by using the example of Antoni Imiela, the man the media dubbed the M25 Rapist because the […]

Five Functions of Identity

A great deal of discussion about identity in a-level Sociology can be fairly abstract and concerned with the mechanics of construction: how and why, for example, particular identities are created and assumed. In the midst of all this some relatively simple questions sometimes get obscured – an idea addressed by Adams and Marshall (1996) when […]

Countdown to Culture

It’s a strange-but-true factette that in the 8 years – and nearly 800 posts – this blog has been active one post has stood head-and-shoulders above all others. Quite why an innocuous little post outlining 7 Functions of Culture should have garnered 30,000-odd views in the 5 years since it was first posted is anyone’s […]

Countdown to Revision

Or, to give it its full title the “Top Tip Revision Countdown List”. This is a short (2-minute) film I put together (and for “put” you should probably read “cobbled”) as a slightly different way of highlighting some of the things students should be doing – and avoiding – when and if they get down […]