Sociology

subject overview

Sociology enables students to gain knowledge and understanding of key social structures, processes and issues through the study of families, education, crime and deviance, social stratification, religion and beliefs. Students will develop their analytical and communication skills by comparing and contrasting perspectives on a variety of social issues, and by studying sociology they will gain skills towards how to: investigate facts and make deduction, develop opinions and new ideas on social issues, analyse and better understand the social world.

Unit Overview - Introduction to Sociology

Subject: Sociology (Year 9 - Introduction)
Skills	Analysis skills – as applied to questions of nature vs nurture Analysis skills as applied to sociological literature (Marx, Parsons, Feminism) Extended writing skills – Mini Essay Analysis and interpretations of various types of graphs and visual information Usage of Specific Research Methodology Designing a questionnaire for conducting original research
Knowledge	Nature vs Nurture in Sociology Socialisation Perspectives in Sociology (Marxism, functionalism, Feminism, Interactionism) Families in the UK Education in the UK Crime and deviance Social Stratification Class differences in the UK
Rationale	Students will familiarise themselves with the main concepts of sociology Students will develop an overview of sociological concepts to help them with further study of sociology Throughout this topic an emphasis is placed on defining the key concepts of sociology as they relate to a social experience that is immediate (family life, education) Students are expected to demonstrate knowledge and understanding of key sociological theories by reading and responding to extracts (summaries of sociological studies) which illustrate the different views of sociologists. They should be able to critically analyse how these sociologists have interpreted the issues.

knowledge Organiser

A knowledge organiser is an important document that lists the important facts that learners should know by the end of a unit of work. It is important that learners can recall these facts easily, so that when they are answering challenging questions in their assessments and GCSE and A-Level exams, they are not wasting precious time in exams focusing on remembering simple facts, but making complex arguments, and calculations.

We encourage all pupils to use them by doing the following:

Quiz themselves at home, using the read, write, cover, check method.
Practise spelling key vocabulary
Further researching people, events and processes most relevant to the unit.

HHS Sociology KO - Introducing Sociology