cambridge assessment international examination as and a

Cambridge Assessment International Examination

AS and A Level 9699

SOCIOLOGY

Revision Guide

According to New

2020-2023 Syllabus

Including Latest Papers with Detailed Solutions

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Syllabus overview

Aims

The aims describe the purposes of a course based on this syllabus. The aims are to enable students to develop:

• knowledge and understanding of sociological terms, theories, methods and research findings • an awareness of the range and limitations of sociological theory and the ability to compare and contrast different theoretical perspectives • an appreciation and understanding of individual, social and cultural diversity, and of continuity and change in social life • an understanding of sociological research methods, including issues concerned with the planning, implementation and evaluation of research enquiry and the collection, analysis and interpretation of data • improved skills of communication, interpretation, analysis and evaluation • skills for further study.

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Syllabus content overview

Cambridge International AS & A Level Sociology 9699 syllabus for 2021, 2022 and 2023. Syllabus overview This table gives an overview of the syllabus content for Cambridge International AS & A Level Sociology.

Paper 1 Socialisation, Identity and Methods of Research 8 Socialisation and the creation • The process of learning and socialisation of social identity • Social control, conformity and resistance • Social identity and change Methods of research • Types of data, methods and research design • Approaches to sociological research • Research issues

Paper 2 – The Family 56 Theories of the family and social change • Perspectives on the role of the family • Diversity and social change Family roles and changing relationships • Gender equality and experiences of family life • Age and family life

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Paper 3 – Education 96 Education and society • Theories about the role of education • Education and social mobility • Influences on the curriculum Education and inequality • Intelligence and educational attainment • Social class and educational attainment • Ethnicity and educational attainment • Gender and educational attainment

Paper 4 – Globalisation, Media and Religion 111 Globalisation Key debates, concepts and perspectives • Perspectives on globalisation • Globalisation and identity • Globalisation, power and politics Contemporary issues • Globalisation, poverty and inequalities • Globalisation and migration • Globalisation and crime

Media Ownership and control of the media • Traditional media and the new media • Theories of the media and influences on media content • The impact of the new media Media representation and effects • Media representations of class, gender, ethnicity, and age groups • Different models of media effects • The impact of the media on behaviour

Religion Religion and social order • Religion and society • Religion and social order • Religion as a source of social change The influence of religion • The secularisation debate • Gender, feminism and religion • Religion and post-modernity

Solved Sample Papers According to New Syllabus 184

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Paper 1 Socialisation, identity and methods of research

Socialisation and the creation of social identity

Key concepts:

• Sociology as a reasoned and rigorous study of social life.

• Sociology as a science: positivist, Interpretivists and post-modernist perspectives.

• The uses of sociological knowledge; the role of values in sociology.

• Sociology and social policy; the differences between sociological problems and social problems

• The diversity of human behaviour and cultural variation.

• The nature of social order, social control and social change.

• Structuralist and interactionist views of the relationship between the individual and society.

• The processes of learning and socialisation; how the individual becomes a competent social actor.

• Agencies of socialisation: family, education, peer group, media, religion.

• Culture, roles, norms, values, beliefs, ideology, power and status as elements in the social construction of reality.

• Social class, gender and ethnicity as elements in the construction of social identities.

• Theories of culture and identity with reference to modernism and post-modernism.

Question: Topics

Introducing sociology, the origins of sociology as rigorous study of social life

Concerts, sports games, and political rallies can have very large crowds. When you attend one of these events, you may know only the people you came with. Yet you may experience a feeling of connection to the group. You are one of the crowds. You cheer and applaud when everyone else does. You boo and yell alongside them. You move out of the way when someone needs to get by, and you say "excuse me “when you need to leave. You know how to behave in this kind of crowd. It can be a very different experience if you are traveling in a foreign country and find yourself in a crowd moving down the street. You may have trouble figuring out what is happening. Is the crowd just the usual morning rush, or is it a political protest of some kind? Perhaps there was some sort of accident or disaster. Is it safe in this crowd, or should you try to extract yourself? How can you find out what is going on? Although you are in it, you may not feel like you are part of this crowd. You may not know what to do or how to behave. Even within one type of crowd, different groups exist and different behaviors are on display. At a rock concert, for example, some may enjoy singing along, others prefer to sit and observe, while still others may join in a mash pit or try crowd surfing. Why do we feel and act differently in different types of social situations? Why might people of a single group exhibit different behaviors in the same situation? Why

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might people acting similarly not feel connected to others exhibiting the same behavior? These are some of the many questions sociologists ask as they study people and societies.

What is sociology? A dictionary defines sociology as the systematic study of society and social interaction. The word “sociology” is derived from the Latin word socius (companion) and the Greek word logos (study of), meaning “the study of companionship.” While this is a starting point for the discipline, sociology is actually much more complex. It uses many different methods to study a wide range of subject matter and to apply these studies to the real world Sociology is the systematic or planned and organized study of human groups and social life in the modern societies. It is concerned with the study of social institutions are the various organized social arrangements which are found in all societies. For example, the family is an institution which is concerned with arrangements for marriage, such as at what age people can marry, whom they can marry and how many partners they can have, and the upbringing of children. The education system establishes ways of passing on attitudes, knowledge and skills from one generation to the next. Work and the economic system organize the way the production of goods will be carried out, and religious institutions are concerned with people’s relation with supernatural. These social institutions make up a society’s social structure the building blocks of the society. Sociology is the study of how membership of social groups, from families through schools to workplaces, influences people’s behaviour. Sociologist creates factual knowledge about how and why people behave in particular ways. Sociologists are not interested in facts for their own sake. They are interested in how facts are: created, how to produce knowledge that is superior to simple opinion and linked how one fact connects to another to create an overall picture of social reality.

Origins of sociology Since ancient times, people have been fascinated by the relationship between individuals and the societies to which they belong. Many of the topics that are central to modern sociological scholarship were studied by ancient philosophers. Many of these earlier thinkers were motivated by their desire to describe an ideal society. In the 13th century, Ma Tuan-Lin, a Chinese historian, first recognized social dynamics as an Underlying component of historical development in his seminal encyclopedia, General Study of Literary Remains. The next century saw the emergence of the historian some consider to be the world’s first sociologist: Ibn Khaldun (1332–1406) of Tunisia. He wrote about many topics of interest today, setting a foundation for both modern sociology and economics, including a theory of social conflict, a comparison of nomadic and sedentary life, a description of political economy, and a study connecting a tribe’s social cohesion to its capacity for power (Hannoum 2003). The end of the 17th century was notable in Europe for great cultural (the way of life of a particular group, define in terms of material culture, or the objects people produce and non material culture the ideas and beliefs they create) upheavals. At this time, intellectuals and scientists such as Sir Isaac Newton began to question the prevailing view of the world, which was based on religious faith, magical superstition, custom and tradition. This period is called Enlightenment and it was first attempt to challenge traditional beliefs. During this scientific period due to the scientific knowledge and researches society develop from its superstitious past to a reasoned future. Such as • Alongside these cultural challenges to the established religious and academic order, the French

Revolution (1789) provided a strong political challenge. • The monarchy and the aristocracy that ruled one the most powerful nations in the world were

overthrown by republican forces.

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• A third source of disruption was the economic changes introduced by the Industrial Revolution. These changes included the development of factories and machine based production processes that began around the middle of the 18th century in Britain and all over the world.

Auguste Comte: The Father of the sociology The term sociology was first coined in 1780 by the French essayist Emmanuel-Joseph Sieyès (1748–1836) in an unpublished manuscript (Fauré et al. 1999). In 1838, the term was reinvented by Auguste Comte (1798–1857). Comte originally studied to be an engineer, but later became a pupil of social philosopher Claude Henri de Rouvroy Comte de Saint-Simon (1760–1825). They both thought that society could be studied using the same scientific methods utilized in natural sciences. Comte also believed in the potential of social scientists to work toward the betterment of society. He held that once scholars identified the laws that governed society, sociologists could address problems such as poor education and poverty (Abercrombie et al. 2000). Comte named the scientific study of social patterns positivism. He described his philosophy in a series of books called The Course in Positive Philosophy (1830–1842) and A General View of Positivism (1848). He believed that using scientific methods to reveal the laws by which societies and individuals interact would usher in a new “positivist” age of history. While the field and its terminology have grown, sociologists still believe in the positive impact of their work. According to Comte all human societies passed through three stages: • The theological, where order was based on religious beliefs and controls. • The metaphysical, a transition phase characterised by upheaval and disorder, where the old

religious order was challenged by the emergence of science. • The positive, where science and reason revealed the nature of the social world and replaced religion

as the basis of social order.

Karl Marx (1818- 83): the founder of sociology Karl Marx (1818–1883) was a German philosopher and economist. In 1848 he and Friedrich Engels (1820–1895) coauthored the Communist Manifesto. This book is one of the most influential political manuscripts in history. It also presents Marx's theory of society, which differed from what Comte proposed. Marx rejected Comte's positivism. He believed that societies grew and changed as a result of the struggles of different social classes over the means of production. At the time he was developing his theories, the Industrial Revolution and the rise of capitalism led to great disparities in wealth between the owners of the factories and workers. Capitalism, an economic system characterized by private or corporate ownership of goods and the means to produce them, grew in many nations.

Marx predicted that inequalities of capitalism would become so extreme that workers would Eventually revolt. This would lead to the collapse of capitalism, which would be replaced by

Communism. Communism is an economic system under which there is no private or corporate ownership: everything is owned communally and distributed as needed. Marx believed that communism was a more equitable system than capitalism. Marx argued that social development had passed through four time periods: • Primitive communism • Ancient society • Feudal, or pre industrial society • Capitalist or industrial society. Marx’s ideas can also be seen as ‘deterministic’. The behavior of the individual is explained in terms of the impact of wider social forces and Marx gives little consideration to the idea that the individual might choose to act in ways that are different to those directed by the economic structure of society.

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Paper 2 – The Family Key Concepts:

The family and social change

• The distinction between households and families and between types of families: lone parent, nuclear and extended.

• Changes in family and household structure and their relationship to industrialisation, urbanisation and globalisation.

• Diversity in family forms according to class, ethnicity, religion, family size, marital status, age and family life cycle.

• The debate about the postulated universality of the nuclear family. • Different theories about the relationship between the family and the economy.

Family roles, marriage and changing relationships • Changes and continuities in family functions; debates about the relationship between the

family and the state. • Roles and responsibilities within the family, including the roles of parents, children and

grandparents. • Conjugal roles and debates about gender equality within the family. • Changing patterns of marriage, cohabitation, civil partnership, separation, divorce and child

bearing; the causes and consequences of these changes. • The impact of family life on individual members.

The social construction of age • The social significance of divisions based on age groups. • Childhood as a concept that is socially constructed. • Class, ethnicity and gender as factors affecting the experience and status of childhood,

youth and older age groups. • Debates about the social position and status of the elderly in different societies.

Social issues, social problems and Families

Most people are raised in families, and so we might think we know all about them. We may make assumptions that people will fall in love with someone of the opposite sex and get married, or starting cohabiting, start having children, and form their own family. We may have the impression that the best kind of family consists of married parents and a couple of children, with Dad out working and Mum mainly concerned with the home and looking after the kids, but with both partners sharing a lot of jobs around the home. We may believe the family is the only place where children can be properly brought up and that it is a source of unconditional affection a place to retreat to whenever things get too much or go wrong in the outside world.

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On other hand, you may believe that the family is in decline, pointing to rising rates of divorce, extra marital sex and abortion, with rising numbers of lone parent families. You might point to rising levels of child abuse, violence against woman, vandalism and crime, and drug abuse. You would not be alone in holding such a belief the mass media, politicians, the police, social workers, teachers and religious leaders have all at some time or other tried to blame the family and lack of parental control for a wide range of social issues and social problems.

There are some social issues and social problems that have been linked to the families in the different areas of world.

• The poor quality of parenting, as parents lack the education and skills to bring up their children as good in all qualities as moral, ethical, social and professional.

• The rise of cohabitation with more couples choosing to live together without getting married, raising concern over the long term security of children.

• The lack of male role for young boys growing up in the mother headed lone parent families.

• The poor economical position of the families passes on a culture of dependency, bringing up their children in a culture where living off welfare benefits provides an acceptable way of life.

• The high level of teenage pregnancies in the UK creates great social problems for illegitimate children.

What is kinship?

Kinship is refers to relations of blood, marriage/ civil partnership of adoption.

According to Giddens, (2006) suggests an alternative, inclusive definition that focuses on kinship and the general relationships that make families different from other social groups. Kin relationship can be based on

Biology, such as blood relative mother father and child

Affinity, such as tow adults living together

Law such as civil relationship by marriage.

What is the family

A family is a group of people who are related by kinship ties: relation of blood, marriage/ civil partnership or adoption. Cohabitation (living together without the legal relation of marriage or civil partnership) is being a very common alternate trend to marriages, so for couples families, cohabitation ought also to be included as family relationship. The family is one of the most important social institutions, which is found in some form in nearly all known societies. It is a basic unit of social organization and plays a key role in socializing children into the culture of their society and forming their identities , how they see themselves and how other see them.

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Paper 3 – Education Key concepts: • Theories about the links between education and the economy. • Explanations of educational achievement and intelligence. • The relationship between education and social mobility. • Debates about the links between social inequality (class, gender, ethnicity) and educational opportunity and achievement. • The social construction of knowledge and learning; power and social control as factors influencing the structure, content and development of the curriculum. • Language, deprivation and knowledge. • Teacher/pupil relationships: streaming, labeling, hidden curriculum and the gendered curriculum. • Pupil sub-cultures and attitudes to education. Question: Topics Explain the process within education through which pupils are encouraged to accept the core values of the society. Asses the view that the main role of education is to promote social equality. The role of education in society Education is a major social institution and schools in Britain command a captive audience of virtually all children between the age of 5 and 16. During this period of compulsory schooling children spend about half of the time they are awake at school during term time, about 15000 hours of their lives. Full time education is compulsory in the UK from the age 5 to 17, though many children start younger in reception classes at primary and infant schools, at pre schools, nurseries and playgroups. About 13% of everything national and local government spends goes on education. The relationship between formal education systems and the economy is both complex and multidimensional. Formal education that takes place within the formal setting of the school. It involves learning a specific range of subjects, mastery of which is tested through formal examinations. Functionalism sees society as a social system consisting of different institutions (family, work, education etc.). These institutions are functionally connected in two ways: • Each institution performs certain essential core functions, such as providing the means of survival or

secondary socialisation (education). • To perform these functions, each institution needs certain things from other institutions. In

contemporary societies, where the workplace usually requires a certain level of knowledge and skill, the education system needs to provide individuals with the necessary social and intellectual foundations. Schools perform this function by accrediting certain levels of knowledge and skill through qualifications.

The relationship between education and work is one of dependency. The workplace needs the education systems to perform its allotted roles in order for society to function successfully.

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The role of institutions in development of society: preparation for working life The institutions develop to perform particular functions, such as work and education. If the needs of one institution are not being adequately met, tensions develop within the system that threatens its stability and ability to function. For example, industrial forms of work require a literate and numerate workforce; without these skills the economy cannot function. Institutions such as the family cannot meet this new requirement, so the stability of the system is threatened. It can be restored in one of the two ways: • An existing institution, such as the family or religion, evolves to perform the required function. This

involves differentiation that occurs within individual institutions; different roles need to be developed if the institution is to perform its new function.

• A new institution, such as formal education, arises to fulfill the need. Secondary (ages 11-15) education was organised into a tripartite system. Pupils were allocated to one of three types of school after taking an intelligence test at age 11. The types of school not only mirrored contemporary beliefs about the nature of intelligence, they also reflected current economic needs in terms of types of labour: • Grammar schools provided a wholly academic education and were geared towards the needs of

professional occupations, such as doctors and accountants, based on particular qualification. • Secondary modern schools provided a mix of vocational work related and academic education

geared towards the needs of the service sector. • Secondary technical schools provided a work related technical/vocational education and were

geared towards the development of skilled manual occupations. In the UK, the 1944 education act that established free, universal education explicitly addressed the relationship between education and the work place through a distinction between: • Academic pupils, destined to move on to university and professional employment. • Vocational pupils, who were destined to follow a practical or technical route into the workforce

The education system carries out preparation for working life in two respects: • Producing a labour force with the skills needed for working life. • Selecting people for different occupation, mostly societies are meritocratic, in which social and

occupational positions and pay are allocated on the basis purely of people’s individual experience, talents, abilities, qualification and skills.

Social democrative theory: change in technology Social democratic theory is the political theory that advocates technocratic and meritocratic solutions to the problem of differential educational achievement. Technology changes in the workplace, involving both a decline in traditional manufacturing and the rise of service industries in areas such as finance, computing and information technology. In the UK, a tripartite system fails to fulfill the economic and better qualified service industry workforce. Social changes focused on ideas about equality in gender, sexuality, ethnicity and class. The tripartite system failed to meet the requirements of social fairness because it ws based on ideas about intelligence that were increasingly divided along class lines. The solution to above problems in the UK was Comprehensive education, system where schools are open to all children, regardless of their ability to pay, where they live or prior educational achievement. It was designed to address social inequality and technological change. Socialization and social cohesion: preparation for adulthood and citizenship The school is an important agency of secondary socialization, continuing the process of primary socialization in the family. Consensus theorists argue that schools transmit from one generation to the next the culture and shared values of a society, though conflict theorists argue this is the culture and values of the dominant and most powerful groups in society. Citizenship and personal and social education courses are concerned with the rights and responsibilities, and duties and freedoms, of people living in a democratic

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Paper 4 – Globalisation, Media & Religion Globalisation

Key debates, concepts and perspectives • Perspectives on globalisation

• Globalisation and identity

•Globalisation, power and politics Contemporary issues • Globalisation, poverty and inequalities

• Globalisation and migration

• Globalisation and crime

Key concepts

Perspectives on globalisation

• Key definitions and issues, including globalisation, glocalisation, global culture, and problems with defining globalisation.

• Different dimensions of globalisation including cultural, political and economic.

• Perspectives on who benefits from globalisation, including the Marxist, feminist, postmodernist, globalist, sceptic and Transformationalist perspectives.

Globalisation and identity

• The impact of globalisation on identity, including ethnic revitalisation, cultural defence and hybrid identity.

• Cultural divergence versus cultural convergence/homogenisation.

• The role of Western ideology in shaping identity and the concept of Westernisation.

Globalisation, power and politics

• The spread of liberal democracy and human rights.

• Global social movements and attempts to oppose globalisation.

• Debates about the role of the nation state in tackling global social and environmental problems.

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Introduction: Concepts of Globalization

There have been many trends in sociology in recent decades. These have varied from country to country. One was a concern with class and social mobility from the 1950s onwards, in part evident in debates between Marxists and Weberians. In the ‘60s and ‘70s feminists argued that such debates had marginalised another form of social division, gender inequalities. Feminism grew in influence, itself being criticised for failing to appreciate other divisions, for instance ethnic inequalities identified by those with postcolonial perspectives. In the 1980s this concern with differences was highlighted in postmodern ideas, and the power of knowledge was analysed by theorists like Michel Foucault. In the 1980s and ‘90s a more homogenising idea came to the fore, globalization. This also then went on to stress local difference and plurality. The themes of globalization were not new, but the word and the popularity of the idea really came to the fore in the 1980s.

One reason is the rise of global communications, especially the internet, which made people feel that connections across the world were flowing more strongly, speedily and becoming more democratic. With the end of the cold war it seemed that the bipolar world had become more unified, whether through cultural homogenisation or the spread of capitalism. People became more conscious of global problems, like climate change. Economic interdependency and instability were more visible.

The Sociology of Globalization

Globalization may appear a macro phenomenon and distant, not the same as micro issues that have more of an impact on daily life. Yet large-scale global processes of economic restructuring and international political power have a big impact on our individual lives. The global economy and distribution of wealth affect, for example, our chances of employment and material circumstances. Identity and cultural experience is forged out of global inputs, from media to music, migration and food. Which side you live on in the constellation of global political powers has significant consequences for your life chances.

For some, phenomena like culture and people movements are what sociologists should be concerned about. Culture is sociological and has social effects whereas economic and political issues are the preserve of other disciplines or maybe just less interesting. Culture is affected by economic and political factors. For instance, mergers and diversification in the media industry and government deregulation have a large impact on our cultural experiences as consumers. Economic and political factors which seem distant from our lives have a large impact.

To take an interdisciplinary perspective is distinctively sociological. Sociology has, from its founding days, drawn on economic and political perspectives and dealt with issues such as capitalism, ownership, the division of labour, economic class, and the role of the nation-state. Consequently, sociology is well equipped to deal with modernity, capitalism and the state, some of the main institutions in globalization.

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