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 […]

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 […]

Risk Society: Simplified

For Beck, the types of risk that existed in the past in countries like Britain and America and the types of risk in contemporary societies are qualitatively different. New types of risk have three main qualities: 1. They are largely invisible and undetectable without science: climate change is an example here. 2. They are universal: […]

Even More A-level Sociology Organisers

A little like the iconic red buses of yore, you wait a couple of years for a new batch of a-level sociology knowledge organisers and then two come along at once. Or a few days later at any rate. Bit like red buses when you come to think about it. Still, a gift horse is […]

Secularisation: The Decline of Religion?

Secularisation theory – the idea that as societies modernise they become less-religious in outlook and governance – is not only a key component in the Sociology of Religion, it’s also a relatively complex set of ideas with which students need to get to grips when presenting a coherent evaluative argument around the topic in an […]

Risk Society

Beck’s complex and at times convoluted arguments around the concept of Risk Society arguably make it one of the more-difficult theoretical areas to cover at A / High School level. This tends to mean it’s covered in a piecemeal way that focuses on one or two dimensions and manifestations of risk in contemporary societies, while […]

Sociology Podcasts: Theory for 10@10

This is a set of podcasts, plus associated supporting material (such as PowerPoint Presentations that summarise key ideas and throw-in a few student activities for good measure), created by Liz Beaven and Andy Leach from Sociology Support that are being given-away for absolutely no money (although you do have to go through a fairly-painless Checkout […]

McDonaldisation resources

Ritzer’s concept of McDonaldisation is a well-known phenomenon that’s characteristic of modernity and modern societies and there are a range of simple resources that can be used to get the idea across to students: This poster, for example, identifies and outlines 5 distinctive processes in the rationalisation of society and culture. This textbook has a short […]

Sociology Flipbooks

A Flipbook is a way of displaying a pdf document online so that it has the look-and-feel of a paper-based magazine, one whose pages you can turn using a mouse (desktop) or finger (mobile). That’s it, really. I could talk about stuff like whether this creates a greater sense of engagement among students than the […]

Simulacra and Hyperreality

I’ve called this a “Lesson Outline” (rather than Plan) because it’s designed to introduce and to some extent explain the related concepts of simulacra and hyperreality using practical examples to illustrate the processes. What the Outline does is treat Baudrillard’s concepts of simulacra and hyperreality in much greater depth than is usually the case with […]