(Re)Discovering Sociology

If you don’t subscribe to the British Sociological Association’s “Discovering Sociology” newsletter you’re missing-out on the free “journal corner” offering of “curriculum friendly summaries of papers published in the BSA journal Sociology” (which presumably means cutting-out all the dull bits and just moving straight to exam-friendly stuff – I could be wrong). Although when they […]

The Spirit Level at 15

Professors Wilkinson and Pickett’s “The Spirit Level”, originally published in 2009, is arguably one of the most important books on social inequality published in recent times, not just for the clear causal links it draws between inequality and a wide range of social issues  such as crime, but also for it’s easy accessibility to students […]

Welcome to the NepoVerse

If you’re having trouble explaining concepts like social and economic capital, Nepo Babies could help…

Social Inequality Smoothies: The Presentation

To complement the Social Inequality Smoothies blog post I thought it might be helpful to create an accompanying PowerPoint Presentation for those who like to take a more-visual approach to these things. It’s a very simple Point-and-Click Presentation (you Point at a picture, Click it and get some basic information) that covers most of your glass-related favourites (I might […]

China In Your Hand: Gig Economy Research

Avid consumers of this blog (anyone?) will be aware that from time-to-time I get the chance to post examples of the research work done by Dean Aldred’s A-level students from the Shenzhen College of International Education in China and this post is given-over to two short pieces of research into the lives and experiences of […]

The (Social) Magic of Sport?

This Lesson Outline uses the analogy of top-level sporting achievement – and the economic, cultural and social resources needed to reach this level – to encourage students to understand and apply concepts of economic, cultural and social capital to explain how and why apparently “individualistic explanations” of behaviour can be more-coherently explained sociologically. This is […]

GCSE Sociology Knowledge Organisers

Over the past couple of years I’ve posted a whole load of Sociology Knowledge Organisers (or Learning Tables as they’re sometimes known) and they continue – along with their Psychology counterparts – to be some of the most-popular posts on the site. Which must mean something. The last batch, however, seems to have been posted […]

Sociology Lesson Elements

This set of resources from the OCR Exam Board is, as you might expect, designed to support teaching and learning for their A-Level Specification. While some of the resources may fall outside the remit of other Sociology Specifications this isn’t to say that teachers of the latter won’t, with a little bit of judicious editing, […]

Takeaway Homework Menus: The Basics

Takeaway Homework Menus are based on an original idea by “Twitter phenomenon and outstanding teacher” Ross Morrison McGill (100 Ideas for Secondary Teachers) – webmaster of the inspirational Teacher Toolkit site – and if you’re not familiar with the idea, the basic premise is a simple one: Instead of giving all your students a single […]

Not Just Another Sociology Book

A text that’s well-worth adding to your collection, even if it’s something you’re only likely to use infrequently when you want to give your students a bit of extended reading around a writer or topic. From time-to-time I’ve posted links to a variety of Sociology and Psychology textbooks that, for one reason or another (because […]

Personal Learning Checklists: GCSE Sociology

Although I’ve previously posted about Personal Learning Checklists (PLCs) this was in the context of providing both a general explanation of how they are broadly designed to work and a basic template you could use to create PLCs for whatever course you happened to be teaching. In basic terms, PLCs can be useful for teachers […]

Flipping Good | 1. The Structure of Social Action

This is a simulation I’ve slightly adapted from Renzulli, Aldrich and Reynolds’ “It’s Up In The Air – Or Is It?”, where they use the game of “Heads or Tails?” to show “How social structures can constrain individual actions”. They apply these ideas to an understanding of social inequality, while here I mainly want to […]

Sociology and You. Too

A later (circa 2008) version of this American High School textbook that has a clean, attractive, design and some interesting content. Might well be worth considering as supplementary material to your existing resources, particularly because it is free… I’ve previously posted an earlier version of this American High School textbook that seems to have gone […]