More Sociology Stuff: History of Education

These short files provide brief coverage of the main signposts in the history of English education, from the first Education Act in 1870 to the major curriculum reforms introduced by the Thatcher Conservative government in 1988 (the Act came into force in 1990). As you might expect, the rapid – and I do mean fast […]

Sociology Stuff: DEA

If you’re sitting comfortably, I’ll tell you a story. A long, long, time ago, when the Internet was still young, there existed a web site, created by Mark Peace, called Sociology Stuff. This web site specialised in producing high quality sociology stuff (hence the name. Probably. I’m guessing) for a few years before Mark got […]

The Marketisation of Education: Branding

The development of Academy schools and Multi-Academy Trusts (MATs) to oversee the management of such schools has been a well-documented dimension of the marketisation of education in England and Wales over the past 20 years. As such, when writing about the New Right and / or marketisation in an exam this is an obvious example […]

7 Sims in 7 Days – Day 7: Cards, Cakes and Class

The final offering in what no-one’s calling “The Wonderful Week of Sims” is designed to give students practical experience of social inequality based on the unequal distribution of economic resources (wealth) – the eponymous “cake” of the title. While this can be an end in itself – a central part of the sim is the […]

Seven Sims in Seven Days: The Introduction

I’ve long been interested in the idea of using simulations (and games – see Disclaimer below) as teaching tools – there were a couple of online efforts I created many moons ago when the Internet was still young and frames seemed such a good idea: Education and Differential Achievement: The Sociological Detective was an attempt […]

Sociology ShortCuts: Labelling Theory

Labelling is a staple theory in the sociology of crime – both in its own right (Becker’s concept of the Outsider, for example) and in terms of its incorporation into other theoretical explanations (Radical Criminology, for example) – and in this ShortCut Professor Sandra Walklate outlines some of the theory’s key ideas: Outsiders Social interaction […]

Mapping Differential Educational Achievement

Differences in UK educational achievement are normally categorised across three main dimensions – class, gender and ethnicity – of which the former is generally seen by sociologists of education as the primary determinant of achievement differences (as measured by exam grades), while gender and in some instances ethnicity is generally preferred by politicians and media […]

SCTV Weekly Round-Up

A little late, but worth the wait. Probably. Our weekly round-up of the sites and stories that are hot. Or not.

Weekly Round-Up

This week’s round-up of all the sites, scenes and sounds that piqued our interest…

Weekly Digest

All the links that caught our eye this past week in one handy post… Sociology Education Methods in Context Mark Scheme I’ve seen the future and it doesn’t look good: “I Teach At A For-Profit College: 5 Ridiculous Realities” Crime Manchester’s Heroin Haters – Vigilante violence? Revealed: London’s new violent crime hotspots Chief Constable confirms […]

Teaching A-level Research Methods: Part 3

Talk the Walk At this point students need to get to grips with learning the basics of research methods. How you organise this is up to you, but one way is to get students to take ownership of their learning: If there are sufficient students, split the class into groups and give each group responsibility […]

Teaching A-level Research Methods: Part 2

Virtual Research in a Real Location The idea here is that we use students’ knowledge of a real location as the basis for virtual research: while the scenario is real – a location such as a high street, shopping mall, school or college – students aren’t required to carry-out any real (time-consuming) research. Rather, they […]

Educational Achievement: Professor Becky Francis

In this short (10 minute) interview, (recorded in 2009 in what looks and sounds like a cupboard somewhere…apologies for the less than pristine sound quality and video), Professor Becky Francis talks about her research into educational achievement.

Differential Educational Achievement: The Home, The School and Emotional Labour…

Explanations for differential educational achievement across different class, age, gender and ethnic categories are many, varied and complex, so it’s unlikely any single explanation taken out of the context of the lived experiences of different social groups can fully explain these differences. However, this is not to say it’s not a useful exercise to get […]

A Modest Proposal for Structured Sociology Teaching: Part 1

It’s a fair bet that sometime within the first few weeks of teaching you’re going to be talking, if only in very basic terms, about the distinction between structure and action and its significance in Sociology. I’ve done this a number of ways in the past, using something like Meighan’s concept of “haunting” as a […]