Notes · SociologyUK · A-Levels

Culture and Identity (optional topic)

This Paper 2 option develops the core theme into a full study of how culture is conceived and how identities are formed. It examines competing conceptions of culture, the sources of identity in class, gender, ethnicity, nationality, age, disability and sexuality, and the contemporary argument that consumption, the media and globalisation have made identity increasingly fluid, hybrid and self-constructed.

5 sections~20 min reading time3 competenciesLevel Standard 3 · Advanced 2

T·0777 / 15

Exam profile

AO1 · Demonstrate knowledge and understanding of conceptions of culture and of the sources and dimensions of identityAO2 · Apply theories of identity to specific groups and to consumption, leisure and globalisation, using the ItemAO3 · Analyse and evaluate structural versus postmodern accounts of identity, reaching a judgement

Operators:outline and explainapplying material from the Item, analyseevaluateassessdiscuss

basic level

AS-Level expects command of the conceptions of culture and the main sources of identity.

higher level

The full A-Level requires sustained evaluation of modernist against postmodernist accounts of identity and the ability to apply them to consumption and globalisation.

Depth

Text

Contents · 5 sections

Culture and Identity (optional topic)

Conceptions of culture#

StandardAQA 7192/2 Culture and IdentityDfE GCE Sociology subject content

Conceptions of culture

Fig. 1The conceptions of culture on which arguments about identity depend - each carries theoretical assumptions.

The topic opens by distinguishing the several conceptions of culture that sociologists use, because arguments about identity depend on which conception is in play. High culture refers to cultural products historically associated with social elites and credited with special aesthetic value - the classical arts and literary canon - and is often used to mark and reproduce class distinction. Popular or mass culture refers to the commercially produced culture consumed by the majority; critical theorists of the Frankfurt School regarded it as standardised and passivity-inducing, while later cultural studies scholars argued audiences use it actively and creatively. The evaluative question of whether the high/popular distinction reflects real aesthetic difference or simply the tastes of the powerful runs through the whole topic.

Folk culture is the culture of ordinary people rooted in local, pre-industrial tradition and community, produced by the people themselves rather than for profit, and often contrasted nostalgically with commercial mass culture. Subculture denotes a group within a wider society whose distinctive norms, values and style set it apart from, and sometimes in opposition to, the mainstream - youth subcultures being the classic sociological example. Global culture describes the way media, migration, tourism and transnational brands have spread shared cultural products and practices across national borders, raising the question of whether local cultures are being homogenised or hybridised.

Two further conceptions are central to contemporary debate. Consumer culture describes a society in which identity, status and meaning are increasingly organised around consumption - what we buy, wear and display - rather than production or community; Bourdieu's analysis of taste as cultural capital shows how consumption patterns mark and reproduce class distinction. Cultural homogenisation and hybridity name the opposed possibilities for global culture: homogenisation (sometimes called cultural imperialism) sees a dominant, often Western, culture displacing local ones, while hybridity sees global and local cultures blending into new forms, as Hall argues of diasporic identities. Which tendency prevails is a key evaluative issue.

These conceptions are not neutral descriptions but carry theoretical commitments, and recognising this is the mark of a strong answer. The very hierarchy of high over popular culture embodies a claim about value that Marxists and postmodernists contest from opposite directions - Marxists seeing it as class ideology, postmodernists seeing the boundary as dissolved in a media-saturated society where sampling and mixing are the norm. Establishing a clear, critical command of these conceptions equips you to analyse how identities are built from cultural materials in the sections that follow, and to evaluate whether contemporary culture is homogenising, fragmenting or hybridising.

Worked example

Is the high/popular distinction real or ideological?

Assess whether the distinction between high and popular culture reflects real aesthetic value.

State the traditional view
High culture is held to possess special, enduring aesthetic worth that popular culture lacks - a difference of quality, not just of audience.
Apply the Marxist critique
Marxists argue the hierarchy is ideological: it reflects and reproduces the tastes of the powerful, and Bourdieu shows how it converts class advantage into cultural capital.
Apply the postmodern critique
Postmodernists argue the boundary has dissolved: in a media-saturated culture, high and popular forms are sampled and mixed, and no fixed hierarchy of taste survives.
Judgement
Conclude that the distinction functions more as a marker of social distinction than a neutral aesthetic fact, though the postmodern claim that it has vanished entirely may be overstated.

Result: The high/popular distinction is best understood as a socially produced marker of class distinction rather than a neutral aesthetic hierarchy, though its dissolution may be less complete than postmodernists claim.

Typical mistakes

Treating 'high' and 'popular' culture as obvious, value-neutral categories rather than as contested and theoretically loaded.
Assuming global culture simply means homogenisation, ignoring hybridity and local resistance.

Active revision

Outline and explain two ways in which sociologists distinguish high culture from popular culture. (10 marks)

Active recall

Recall the key points — then reveal.

Sources: GCE AS and A level subject content for sociology (Department for Education)

Socialisation and the construction of the self#

StandardAQA 7192/2 Culture and IdentityDfE GCE Sociology subject content

Agencies of socialisation forming identity

Fig. 2Identity is constructed from cultural materials transmitted by the agencies of socialisation.

Identity is built out of cultural materials through socialisation, and this section examines the process in the depth the option requires. Primary socialisation in the family lays down the earliest layers of identity - language, emotional attachments, gender, a first moral sense - while secondary socialisation through education, peer groups, the media, religion and the workplace extends and complicates it. The key theoretical claim is that the self is not given by biology but constructed in interaction: we become who we are through our relations with others and the culture they transmit.

Interactionist accounts explain how the self emerges. Cooley's looking-glass self holds that we form our self-image from how we imagine others perceive us, taking on the reflected appraisal. Mead's fuller theory shows the self developing through language and role-taking: the child learns to see itself from the standpoint of particular others and finally of the 'generalised other', internalising the community's expectations, while retaining the spontaneous 'I' alongside the socialised 'me'. Goffman's dramaturgical model adds that identity is actively performed and managed - we present different selves front-stage and back-stage - so that identity is not merely received but staged and negotiated.

Structural perspectives emphasise how socialisation reproduces the identities a social structure requires. Functionalists see socialisation as transmitting shared values so that individuals willingly occupy their roles; Marxists see it as instilling ruling-class ideology and class-appropriate identities; feminists, following Oakley, stress gender-role socialisation through which the family and other agencies produce gendered identities that come to feel natural. On these accounts, identity is patterned by social position - class, gender, ethnicity - rather than freely chosen, and the appearance of naturalness disguises a social construction.

The tension between these accounts frames the whole topic and is the source of its best evaluation. Structural theories capture the way identities are patterned by position and reproduced across generations, but risk an over-socialised, deterministic picture in which individuals merely absorb what they are given. Interactionist theories restore the active, meaning-making self that negotiates and performs identity, but can neglect the structural forces that shape the options available. The contemporary debate, developed in the final section, asks whether social change - especially consumption, the media and globalisation - has shifted the balance decisively towards active, chosen identity, or whether class, gender and ethnicity still set the terms within which identity is constructed.

Worked example

Structural versus interactionist construction of the self

Assess the view that identity is imposed by social structure rather than constructed by the individual.

State the structural case
Functionalists, Marxists and Oakley show identity patterned by class, gender and ethnicity through socialisation, so that it feels natural but is socially produced.
State the interactionist case
Cooley, Mead and Goffman show the self actively constructed, negotiated and performed in interaction, not simply absorbed.
Weigh the two
Structural theory explains the patterning of identity by position; interactionism explains how identity is enacted and can vary - each captures what the other misses.
Judgement
Conclude that identity is actively constructed but within structural limits, so neither pure imposition nor free construction fits - anticipating the postmodern debate.

Result: Identity is best understood as actively constructed by individuals working with, and within the limits of, culturally transmitted materials patterned by class, gender and ethnicity - a synthesis of structure and agency.

Typical mistakes

Describing socialisation without connecting it to the construction of a specific identity.
Treating interactionist and structural accounts as unrelated rather than as rival answers to how identity is formed.

Active revision

Outline and explain two ways in which socialisation shapes an individual's identity. (10 marks)

Active recall

Recall the key points — then reveal.

Sources: AQA AS and A-level Sociology (7192) specification (AQA)

Sources of identity: class, gender, ethnicity, nationality#

AdvancedAQA 7192/2 Culture and IdentityDfE GCE Sociology subject content

Structural versus fluid sources of identity

Fig. 3Modernists anchor identity in structural sources; postmodernists see it as fluid and chosen - hybridity occupies the overlap.

Class identity has traditionally been a powerful source of self-understanding, expressed through work, community, speech, taste and consumption. Bourdieu's concept of habitus - the durable dispositions and tastes acquired through class upbringing - explains how class shapes not just what people have but who they feel themselves to be, and how these tastes function as cultural capital. Yet sociologists debate whether class identity has weakened: some argue that deindustrialisation, the decline of traditional working-class communities and the rise of consumption have eroded a shared class identity, while others insist that class continues to shape identity powerfully even where people no longer name it as such.

Gender identity is constructed through gender-role socialisation and reinforced across the life course by the media, education, work and the family. Connell's concept of hegemonic masculinity describes the dominant, culturally idealised form of manhood against which men measure themselves and which subordinates both women and alternative masculinities, while feminists document the construction of femininity through appearance, caring roles and the male gaze. The contemporary debate asks how far gender identities are loosening - whether new, more diverse masculinities and femininities are emerging - or whether traditional gendered scripts persist beneath a rhetoric of change.

Ethnic and national identities are constructed from shared language, religion, history and a sense of common belonging, but they are dynamic rather than fixed. Hall and Gilroy argue that ethnic identities in diasporic, multicultural societies are increasingly hybrid - blending elements of different cultures into new forms, as in the identities of second- and third-generation minority communities - rather than being straightforward inheritances. National identity, Anderson argues, rests on the nation as an 'imagined community': a sense of belonging with millions of strangers, sustained by symbols, media and education, that is socially constructed rather than natural, and that can be mobilised, contested and reshaped.

The evaluative thread is whether these sources of identity are becoming weaker, more fluid and more chosen, or remain structurally anchored. Modernist perspectives - functionalist, Marxist and feminist - treat class, gender and ethnicity as enduring structural sources that pattern identity; postmodernists argue that in a globalised, media-saturated consumer society, individuals increasingly assemble hybrid, pick-and-mix identities from a global menu, so that these older sources lose their determining power. The strongest answers refuse a simple choice: they show that identities have genuinely become more hybrid and reflexive while insisting that class, gender and ethnicity continue to shape the materials, resources and recognition available for constructing them - a judgement, not a juxtaposition.

Worked example

Model essay plan: is class still a source of identity?

Plan a 20-mark answer evaluating the view that class is no longer an important source of identity.

Set up the debate
Postmodernists claim class identity has faded as consumption rises; critics argue class still shapes identity. Signal a judgement.
The 'faded' case
Deindustrialisation, the decline of working-class communities, and consumption-based identity suggest class is a weaker, less-named source of self-understanding.
The 'persists' case
Bourdieu's habitus and cultural capital show class still shapes taste, confidence and recognition; patterned inequalities in life chances continue to structure experience.
Reconcile
Class identity may be less explicitly claimed while still operating implicitly through taste, opportunity and the resources available for constructing any identity.
Judgement
Conclude that class has become a less overt but still powerful source of identity, so the postmodern claim of its disappearance is overstated.

Result: A top-band plan grants that class identity is less explicitly claimed, uses habitus and persistent inequality to show it still operates, and judges its disappearance overstated - a reasoned middle position, not a one-sided answer.

Typical mistakes

Treating class, gender, ethnicity and nationality as fixed, natural categories rather than socially constructed and dynamic.
Asserting that identity is now freely chosen without evaluating the evidence that structural sources still shape it.

Active revision

Applying material from the Item, analyse two ways in which ethnicity may act as a source of identity in contemporary society. (10 marks)

Active recall

Recall the key points — then reveal.

Sources: GCE AS and A level subject content for sociology (Department for Education)

Age, disability and sexuality as identities#

StandardAQA 7192/2 Culture and IdentityDfE GCE Sociology subject content

Medical versus social model of disability

Fig. 4The medical model locates disability in the individual; the social model locates it in a society organised around the able-bodied.

Age is a socially constructed source of identity, not merely a biological fact. Sociologists show that the meaning of childhood, youth, middle age and old age varies across societies and history: what it means to be 'young' or 'old', the status and expectations attached to each stage, and the boundaries between them are cultural constructions. Youth in particular has become a distinct cultural identity, associated with leisure, style and subcultures, while old age is often constructed through negative stereotypes that shape the social identity and treatment of older people. Age identities are thus produced through socialisation, media representation and institutional practices.

Disability is analysed through the contrast between the medical and social models, a distinction central to the sociology of disability as an identity. The medical model treats disability as an individual impairment - a personal deficit to be cured or managed - whereas the social model argues that disability is produced by a society organised around the able-bodied, which disables people with impairments through physical, institutional and attitudinal barriers. On the social model, disabled identity is partly imposed by a stigmatising society (echoing Goffman's analysis of stigma and spoiled identity) and partly actively reclaimed by disabled people and movements who reject the deficit label and assert a positive identity.

Sexuality is likewise understood as a constructed and regulated identity rather than a purely natural given. Sociologists examine how sexual identities are shaped by cultural norms, socialisation and the media, how heterosexuality has been socially privileged as the taken-for-granted norm, and how sexual identities that depart from it have historically been stigmatised and are now, in many contexts, more openly asserted and less marginalised. The construction of sexual identity intersects with gender, ethnicity and class, so that no sexual identity is experienced in isolation from other dimensions of the self.

These three sources reinforce the topic's central lesson - that identity is socially constructed and intersectional - and they supply rich material for evaluation. Each shows a category often treated as natural (age, bodily ability, sexuality) to be shaped by culture, socialisation and power, and each has been the site of movements that contest imposed identities and assert positive ones, illustrating agency as well as structure. The intersection of age, disability and sexuality with class, gender and ethnicity means that any adequate analysis of identity must be multi-dimensional, and this insight - that identities are constructed, contested and intersecting - is what strong evaluative answers carry into the debate about consumption and postmodern identity.

Worked example

Applying the social model to disabled identity

Explain how the social model reframes disability as a constructed identity.

Contrast the models
The medical model treats disability as a personal deficit; the social model treats it as the product of a society built around the able-bodied.
Identify the mechanism
Physical, institutional and attitudinal barriers - inaccessible buildings, discriminatory practices, stigmatising stereotypes - impose a disabled identity on people with impairments.
Add the Goffman link
Goffman's analysis of stigma and spoiled identity shows how a discrediting attribute can come to dominate how a person is seen and treated.
Note agency
Disabled people's movements reject the imposed deficit identity and reclaim a positive one, showing identity is contested, not simply imposed.

Result: The social model reframes disabled identity as socially constructed through barriers and stigma rather than individual deficit, while disabled people's movements show that imposed identities can be actively contested and reclaimed.

Typical mistakes

Treating age, disability or sexuality as purely biological rather than socially constructed identities.
Presenting disabled or older people as passive victims of imposed identities, ignoring the movements that contest and reclaim them.

Active revision

Outline and explain two ways in which disability can be understood as a socially constructed identity. (10 marks)

Active recall

Recall the key points — then reveal.

Sources: AQA AS and A-level Sociology (7192) specification (AQA)

Consumption, globalisation and postmodern identity#

AdvancedAQA 7192/2 Culture and IdentityDfE GCE Sociology subject content

Consumption and media as sources of postmodern identity

Fig. 5Postmodernists see identity assembled from consumption, media and global culture; critics stress that the resources to do so are unequally distributed.

The topic culminates in the contemporary argument that identity has been transformed by consumption, the media and globalisation. Postmodernists argue that in a consumer society identity is increasingly based on what we buy and display rather than on production, class or community: through consumption individuals assemble a 'pick-and-mix' identity from a vast menu of styles, brands and images, and can revise it at will. Bauman describes a 'liquid' modernity in which identities are provisional and continually remade, while Maffesoli's notion of 'neo-tribes' captures the way people move fluidly between temporary, style-based groupings rather than belonging to fixed communities.

The media are central to this account. In Baudrillard's analysis, contemporary society is saturated with signs and images to the point of 'hyperreality', where representations no longer refer to any underlying reality and identity is constructed from mediated images. The globalisation of media and consumption extends the menu from which identity is assembled, so that people draw on cultural resources from around the world; this can produce hybrid identities that blend global and local elements, supporting the view that identity has become more reflexive, diverse and self-authored than the structural sources allow.

Structural sociologists mount a strong critique. They argue that the postmodern account exaggerates freedom and neglects inequality: the capacity to construct identity through consumption depends on money, and access to the global menu is stratified by class, so that identity-through-consumption is itself a marker of privilege. Marxists add that consumer identity serves capitalism by turning citizens into consumers and disguising class relations, and that beneath the rhetoric of choice, class, gender and ethnicity continue to pattern the identities realistically available. The persistence of structured inequalities in life chances, they argue, shows that identity has not floated free of social structure.

A top-band evaluation holds these positions in a reasoned balance. It grants that consumption, the media and globalisation have genuinely made identity more fluid, reflexive and hybrid than the classic structural theories assumed, and that the pick-and-mix metaphor captures something real about contemporary life. But it insists that this freedom is unequally distributed and structurally conditioned: class, gender and ethnicity shape the resources, opportunities and recognition available for constructing any identity, so the postmodern claim that these sources have lost their power is overstated. The judgement - that identity is now more actively and diversely constructed, but still within enduring structural limits - is the culmination of the whole topic and the model for its 20-mark essays.

Worked example

Model essay plan: consumption versus structure

Plan a 20-mark answer evaluating the view that identity is now based on consumption rather than on class, gender or ethnicity.

Set up the debate
Postmodernists say consumption has replaced structural sources of identity; critics say class, gender and ethnicity still dominate. Signal a judgement.
The consumption case
Bauman's liquid identity, Maffesoli's neo-tribes, Baudrillard's hyperreality; globalisation widens the menu, producing hybrid, self-authored identities.
The structural critique
The freedom to consume is stratified by class; Marxists see consumer identity as serving capitalism and masking class; inequalities in life chances persist.
Reconcile
Identity has genuinely become more fluid and hybrid, but the resources and recognition to construct it remain structured by class, gender and ethnicity.
Judgement
Conclude that consumption is now an important source of identity but operates within, not instead of, enduring structural sources - the postmodern claim is overstated.

Result: A top-band plan credits the fluidity consumption brings, uses the inequality critique to show that freedom is stratified, and judges that consumption supplements rather than replaces class, gender and ethnicity - a balanced, evaluative conclusion.

Typical mistakes

Accepting the pick-and-mix thesis uncritically, ignoring that consumption-based identity depends on money and is stratified.
Describing postmodern and structural views side by side without evaluating or reconciling them.

Active revision

Applying material from the Item and your knowledge, evaluate the postmodernist view that identity is now based on consumption rather than on class, gender or ethnicity. (20 marks)

Active recall

Recall the key points — then reveal.

Sources: GCE AS and A level subject content for sociology (Department for Education)

References & sources

Sources

Department for Education

GCE AS and A level subject content for sociology

AQA

AQA AS and A-level Sociology (7192) specification

Culture and Identity (optional topic)

5 sections~20 min reading time3 competenciesLevel Standard 3 · Advanced 2

Culture and Identity (optional topic)

Key points

Is the high/popular distinction real or ideological?

Key points

Structural versus interactionist construction of the self

Key points

Model essay plan: is class still a source of identity?

Key points

Applying the social model to disabled identity

Key points

Model essay plan: consumption versus structure

Sources

Culture and Identity (optional topic)

Key points

Is the high/popular distinction real or ideological?

Key points

Structural versus interactionist construction of the self

Key points

Model essay plan: is class still a source of identity?

Key points

Applying the social model to disabled identity

Key points

Model essay plan: consumption versus structure

Sources