Learning Tables: Crime and Deviance
We’ve just started filming for a new series of crime and deviance films (the long-awaited follow-up volume to our original Shortcuts to Crime and Deviance films – a welcome change to be creating sociology films after 3 years spent focusing on psychology films – and in the process of searching for Robert Agnew pics (one […]
Sociological Theories And Frameworks
This is a web page where you can find a bite-sized run-down of a range of: a. Sociological frameworks – from those fairly central to a-level, such as Functionalism, Feminism. Conflict theory, Critical theory and those (symbolic interaction, phenomenology) that tend to be a little more optional. b. Sociological theories – some fairly central ones, […]
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 […]
14 | Youth: Part 3
One area of social life in which the relationship between youth and specific types of behaviour is particularly clear is that of offending behaviour. Young people – principally young, working class, men – are hugely over-represented in the crime statistics and since this series of chapters is linked by ideas about Youth Culture and Subculture […]
13 | Youth: Part 2
The notion of “youth” as a fairly recent (i.e. modernist) phenomenon leads to the question of exactly why this type of life-stage geminates in the transition from pre-modernity to modernity and comes into full-flower in late-modern / postmodern societies? In other words, what Is the role played by youth culture / subcultures in society? The […]
7 | Families and Households: Part 4
The final part of the Family chapter looks at “Roles, responsibilities and relationships within the family” through the media of: • Domestic division of labour • Power relationships • Children and parents • Functionalist / Marxist / Feminist explanations of family roles • Demographic trends and changes As with previous chapters I can’t emphasise strongly […]
5 | Families and Households: Part 2
This part of the family chapter examines the role of family in society through two different and opposing structural approaches: Functionalism / Neo-Functionalism and Marxism / Neo-Marxism. The content covered, in no particular order of significance, includes: • Family functions and orientations • The link between individuals and society • Family dysfunctions (the “Dark side […]
2 | The Process of Socialisation
Chapter 2 builds on the “culture material” in the first chapter by exploring how culture is created in one of two ways: 1. Through the influence of instincts, a largely non-sociological (‘nature’) approach to understanding culture. 2. Through the influence of our social environment, a conventional sociological approach that outlines different types and agencies of […]
NotAFactsheet: Crime and Deviance
I thought it would make a change from research methods to put together a few NotAFactsheets on crime and deviance, so here are the first products of what no-one’s calling a “radical new departure in NotAFactsheet production”. These three efforts focus on and around Functionalist-type approaches to crime: D1. Functionalist Approaches | D1. Functionalist Approaches […]
Updating Functionalism: Systems Theory
It’s a fair bet that most teachers introduce “the Functionalist perspective” at the start of a course by using an organismic / organic analogy and as a way of introducing the perspective there’s nothing particularly wrong with this; on the contrary, it can be a useful way to help students understand the basic principles underpinning […]
Seven Functions of Culture
As you may have noticed I’m quite attached to the idea of lists, so this second “list post” (did you see what I did there?) should come as no surprise. Nor should it be surprising that the list focuses on functions. Again. I can’t really explain why there are so many Functionalist lists. Perhaps they […]
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 […]
Modernity and Sociological Theory
This is the first part of a two-part series looking at the relationship between modernity, postmodernity and the development of sociological theory. In Part 1 (Modernity) the focus is on: Part 2 (Postmodernity) is available here. Sociology and Modernity “Sociology”, according to Taylor (2000), “is a product of modernity”; its origins as an academic discipline […]
Family PowerPoints
As the frequent reader of this blog (“Hi”) well-knows, I collect a lot of stuff on my travels around the web and I store it safely away for times such as this – when I’ve got a blog post to write and nothing to write it about (or at least nothing that takes the minimum […]
Cute Concepts for A-Level Sociology: Reification
Reification is similar to the idea of anthropomorphism (giving human qualities to animals. Even if you’ve never heard of the word you’ll be familiar with what it involves from the thousands of YouTube videos, featuring cute cats and dotty dogs, that clog-up your Facebook feed. Also, every Disney cartoon that features talking mice, ducks and […]