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Preference Subject
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Sociology is a challenging and exciting subject. Its aim is to understand
how societies work and to study and explain how society makes us who we are.
In studying Sociology, you will be actively involved in exploring and asking questions
about the society in which you live, such as:
- Why do people turn to crime?
- Who controls the media?
- Is there such a thing as a ‘typical’ family?
- What gives people power in our society?
- How does school control us?
Studying Sociology offers you the opportunity to gain a greater understanding of society
and to make sense of your own experiences within it. It observes the day to day
experiences of people in groups e.g. workers, criminal gangs, or children and seeks to
explain them.
You will learn basic ‘Perspectives’ or ways of looking at society: Consensus and Conflict
theories that attempt to explain how societies work.
You will learn about the different methods of data collection: experiments, questionnaires,
interviews; their advantages and disadvantages and how they have been used in
sociological studies.
The topics studied are – Family, Education, Crime and Deviance, Youth Culture and the
Mass Media.
You will also develop the necessary skills to enable you to assess different views and
reach conclusions about society, based on a careful consideration of evidence. There is
no coursework option but students sit a one hour exam at the end of Year 10 which is
worth 25% of their overall grade. At the end of Year 11, students take three examinations:
Sociology Basics 25%, Socialisation, Culture and Identity 50% and Applying Sociological
Research Techniques 25%.
Sociology is valuable for a number of wide-ranging careers, for example; social work,
politics, teaching, policing and the justice system, but is equally as valuable as a
subject which develops your ideas about the world and makes you consider different
opinions on and the causes of social behaviour and patterns over time in our society.
Student comments on studying Sociology...
“It’s made me think about why I agree and disagree with things that others say”
“I didn’t realise how much society influenced our behaviour”
“It’s helped me understand the topics in English and History more – it links with so
many other subjects”
Sociology will help you make sense of society and give you new ways of seeing the
social world around you. You will question aspects of it you had previously taken
for granted.
Sociology GCSE will provide you with ‘tools’ which allow you to become a better
informed and more socially aware member of society.
