More GCSE Sociology Revision Stuff

While it’s possible to put-together a very reasonable – and reasonably comprehensive – set of revision resources from stuff that teachers have put on the web, there are a couple of things you should do before committing yourself to using these materials: 1. Check they are for your Specification – you don’t want to be […]

Knowledge Organisers: Media and Methods and Education

Back by popular demand and with a brand-spanking new set of Tables covering media, methods and education. Each Unit is by a different author and the quality is, at times, variable. Media These are pdf files so unless you’ve got a programme that will edit them you’re stuck with the information they have to offer. […]

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, […]

More Sociology Knowledge Organisers

Knowledge Organisers, you may or may not be surprised to learn, are the classroom requirement de nos jours and while some (looking at you Michaela Community School) may like to casually lay claim to the concept / format as being something radically new and different they’ve developed, it really isn’t. Here, for example, is one […]

More Learning Tables: AS Research Methods

Today’s Table offering is everyone’s favourite revision topic (research methods in case you actually need to ask) and all of the Tables were written / assembled by Miss K Elles, except for those that weren’t. The Tables cover the major research methods plus a little bit of research methodology (positivism and interpretivism plus stuff on […]

Children and Parents: Media Use and Attitudes

The 2017 OfCom Report on “Children and Parents: Media Use and Attitudes” (2017) covers different types of on-and-offline media use by children in the UK and it’s quite a treasure trove of visual and verbal information that will repay careful analysis – although at around 300 pages it may prove a little hard-going for most […]

How does Cultural Capital Work in Chinese Society?

This research, created and carried-out by one of Richard Driscoll’s students at the Shenzhen College of International Education in China applies the concept of cultural capital to an understanding of the relationship between class, status and education in contemporary China. As such, it’s a useful teaching resource for both the way it applies the concept […]

Trial: And Error Frontend

In response to quite literally no-one asking for it, we’ve created a Frontend – what people in The Olde Days laughingly used to call “a Menu” – for the Research Process sim. This brings together three elements of a possible lesson (the Simulation PowerPoint, Hypothetico-Deductive PowerPoint and “Nature of Science” pdf) in one handy, easy […]

Chinese Parents’ Involvement in Children’s Education

Regular readers of this blog will be aware that from time-to-time we’ve been able to feature research done by Richard Driscoll’s Sociology A-level students at the Shenzhen College of International Education in China and the latest study to come our way, by Ma Jia Ying, looks at the involvement of Chinese parents in decisions made […]

11 | The Research Process: Part 4

The final part of the Research Methods chapter covers the use of mixed methods in the context of sociological research and is split into three theoretically-discrete, but related, areas: 1. Methodological pluralism involves the idea of combining methodologies, methods and data types to arrive at a more-rounded, reliable and valid insight into social behaviour. 2. […]

10 | The Research Process: Part 3

In Part 2 of this chapter  we looked at quantitative research – in terms of both primary and secondary data and methods – and Part 3 does something similar for qualitative data and research. It’s also structured in the same way as the previous chapter which, if nothing else, at least shows I thought a […]

Culture and Identity: Caught Between Two Worlds?

Richard Driscoll teaches A-level Sociology at the Shenzhen College of International Education in China and you may recall an interesting piece of research – The Last Queendom of Women?  – carried-out by one of his students, Hecate Li, that provided a contemporary example of an alternative to the “conventional nuclear family”. In this latest piece […]

9 | The Research Process: Part 2

The focus here is quantitative data and research, with the free chapter split into three discrete, but necessarily related, parts. The first part outlines a selection of primary quantitative research methods (questionnaires, structured interviews and content analysis) and evaluates their strengths and weaknesses. The second part does something similar for secondary quantitative methods (official and […]

8 | The Research Process: Part 1

While Research Methods at a-level aren’t everyone’s cup of tea they can be interesting if students are given the time and space to bring together the theory with the practice. Unfortunately I can’t help you here with the practice (although I can give you a few pointers about how to carry-out a range of cheap […]

Psych’d Magazine Issue 2

Psych’d is a twice-yearly (October and July) Psychology Magazine, published by WJEC (formerly the Welsh Joint Examining Committee) designed to support teachers and students studying for the WJEC and Eduqas A-level Psychology qualifications. While, as you might expect, the magazine contains material (CPD events, important dates and recommended textbooks) specific to these particular exam boards, […]