Notes · SociologyUK · A-Levels

Sociological Theories, Perspectives and Methods

This topic sets out the competing theoretical perspectives that frame every debate in the subject - functionalism, Marxism, feminism, interactionism, postmodernism and the New Right - alongside the research methods through which sociologists gather evidence. Its distinctive claim is that theory and method are inseparable: a sociologist's assumptions about the nature of social reality shape the methods they choose, so evaluating a perspective and evaluating a method are two halves of the same skill.

6 sections~26 min reading time3 competenciesLevel Standard 3 · Advanced 3

T·0333 / 15

Exam profile

AO1 · Demonstrate knowledge and understanding of the perspectives, their key concepts and thinkers, and of research methods and their principlesAO2 · Apply perspectives and methods to institutions, research questions and ItemsAO3 · Analyse and evaluate the strengths and limitations of each perspective and method, comparing consensus, conflict, action and postmodern approaches

Operators:outline and explainapplyanalyseevaluateassessdiscusscompare

basic level

AS-Level expects command of the main perspectives and the basic distinction between positivist quantitative and interpretivist qualitative methods.

higher level

The full A-Level requires sustained evaluation of the perspectives against one another and precise use of the PET factors and the concepts of reliability, validity and representativeness in method choice.

Depth

Text

Contents · 6 sections

Sociological Theories, Perspectives and Methods

Consensus theory: functionalism#

StandardAQA 7192 Theory and MethodsDfE GCE Sociology subject content

The map of sociological perspectives

Fig. 1The main perspectives and their sub-schools - the map that structures every theory essay.

Functionalism is the leading consensus perspective: it starts from the premise that society is a stable, integrated whole held together by a shared value consensus and analyses each institution by the contribution - the function - it makes to the maintenance of that whole. Durkheim, the founding figure, argued that society is a reality greater than the sum of its individuals, exercising a moral authority over them through the 'collective conscience' - the shared beliefs and sentiments that bind members together. Social order, on this view, is not the natural outcome of self-interest but a moral achievement, secured when individuals internalise common values through socialisation.

Parsons developed functionalism into a systematic theory of the 'social system'. He used the organic analogy, comparing society to a biological organism whose parts (institutions) work together to keep the whole healthy, and argued that every social system must meet four functional prerequisites - adaptation, goal attainment, integration and latency (the AGIL scheme) - to survive. For Parsons, value consensus is the glue: shared values are learned in socialisation and reinforced by social control, so that people generally want to do what the system needs them to do. Merton refined the theory from within, distinguishing manifest functions (the intended, recognised consequences of an institution) from latent functions (the unintended, hidden ones), and insisting that institutions can also be dysfunctional - harmful to the system - which softened the assumption that everything that exists must be beneficial.

Functionalism's strengths are real. It offers a genuinely macro, structural account of how societies cohere, takes social order seriously as a problem requiring explanation, and its concepts - value consensus, function, socialisation, social integration - remain analytically useful across the substantive topics. Durkheim's insistence that social facts be studied objectively, as external constraints on the individual, helped establish sociology as a discipline. The perspective also generated influential research, from Durkheim's own study of suicide to functionalist accounts of the family, education, religion and crime.

The criticisms are equally weighty and must be deployed in evaluation. Conflict theorists argue that functionalism mistakes the values of the powerful for a genuine consensus and cannot explain conflict, inequality and social change, which it tends to treat as abnormal. Its teleological reasoning - explaining an institution by its beneficial effects, as if society had needs it acts to meet - is logically questionable. Action theorists object that functionalism is deterministic, portraying individuals as passive puppets of the system with no capacity to interpret or resist. Postmodernists add that the very idea of a single, integrated society with shared values no longer fits a fragmented, diverse social world. Functionalism is therefore best treated as a powerful but partial account of consensus that requires the correctives supplied by the other perspectives.

Worked example

Evaluating the functionalist theory of consensus

Assess the functionalist claim that social order rests on a shared value consensus.

State the claim
Functionalists argue order is secured when individuals internalise shared values through socialisation, so people willingly meet the system's needs.
Credit the strength
This takes the problem of order seriously and explains cohesion; concepts like value consensus and socialisation are genuinely useful.
Apply the conflict critique
Marxists reply that the supposed consensus is really ruling-class ideology; apparent agreement may be false consciousness, not genuine shared values.
Apply the action critique
Interactionists object that individuals actively interpret and can resist values, so order is negotiated, not simply programmed by the system.
Judgement
Conclude that consensus captures part of how order is maintained but overstates agreement and understates power and agency.

Result: The value-consensus thesis explains cohesion but mistakes the values of the powerful for universal agreement and ignores the individual's capacity to resist - so it is a partial, not a complete, account of social order.

Typical mistakes

Presenting functionalism as if all sociologists rejected it, without acknowledging its genuine strengths as a structural theory of order.
Attributing Parsons's or Merton's specific concepts to 'functionalists' in general - examiners reward accurate attribution.

Active revision

Outline and explain two functionalist concepts used to explain how social order is maintained. (10 marks)

Active recall

Recall the key points — then reveal.

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

Conflict theory: Marxism and feminism#

AdvancedAQA 7192 Theory and MethodsDfE GCE Sociology subject content

Consensus versus conflict

Fig. 2Functionalism and Marxism are both macro structural theories but split on whether society rests on consensus or conflict.

Conflict theories reject the functionalist picture of consensus and start instead from division, domination and struggle. Marxism, the classic conflict perspective, holds that societies are structured around the economic base - the mode of production - which shapes the superstructure of institutions and ideas above it. In capitalism, the bourgeoisie who own the means of production exploit the proletariat who own only their labour power, extracting surplus value as profit. This exploitation generates a fundamental conflict of interest that Marx believed would eventually produce class consciousness and revolution. Meanwhile the exploited are kept compliant by ideology - ruling-class ideas that present the system as fair or natural, producing false consciousness.

Marxism is internally divided, and examiners reward recognition of this. Structural (or 'humanistic' versus 'scientific') debates run through it. Althusser offers a structuralist account in which individuals are shaped by ideological state apparatuses (education, religion, media) and repressive state apparatuses (police, army), with little room for agency. Gramsci, by contrast, develops a more humanistic Marxism centred on hegemony - the ideological leadership by which the ruling class wins consent - and argues that the working class holds a 'dual consciousness', partly shaped by ruling ideas and partly by its own experience, leaving space for resistance. This tension between structure and agency inside Marxism mirrors the wider structure-action debate.

Feminism is the other major conflict perspective, analysing society as patriarchal - structured by men's domination of women. It too is internally plural. Liberal feminism sees gender inequality as the product of outdated attitudes and discriminatory laws, remediable through reform and changing socialisation (Oakley's distinction between biological sex and cultural gender is foundational). Marxist feminism ties women's oppression to capitalism, arguing that unpaid domestic labour and women's role as a reserve army of labour serve capital. Radical feminism sees patriarchy as the primary and universal form of oppression, rooted in men's control of women's bodies and sexuality. Difference and postmodern feminism, drawing on black feminists, criticise the earlier strands for assuming a single, usually white and middle-class, female experience, and insist on intersectionality.

Evaluating conflict theory means holding its power against its problems. Its strengths are its unflinching focus on inequality, exploitation and power, its ability to explain conflict and change that functionalism struggles with, and its exposure of how ideology naturalises domination. Its weaknesses are, for Marxism, a tendency to economic determinism and the failure of the predicted revolution; for feminism, internal disagreement and, for the radical strand, a tendency to treat patriarchy as universal and unchanging. Both are criticised by action theorists for being overly deterministic and by postmodernists for relying on grand narratives. The most effective essays play the conflict perspectives against functionalism on order versus conflict, and against each other on which division - class or gender - is primary.

Worked example

Model essay plan: the base and the superstructure

Plan a 20-mark answer evaluating the Marxist view that the economic base shapes the rest of society.

Set up the debate
Marxism claims the economic base determines the superstructure; critics dispute the direction and strength of that determination. Signal a judgement.
The Marxist case
Base/superstructure model; ideology in education, media and religion reproduces class relations (Althusser's ISAs); exploitation via surplus value.
Internal debate
Gramsci's hegemony and dual consciousness soften economic determinism, allowing agency and resistance - a stronger version of the theory.
External critique
Weber: status and party are not reducible to class. Functionalists: consensus, not conflict, explains order. Postmodernists: no single base-driven grand narrative fits a fragmented society.
Judgement
Conclude that the base powerfully shapes but does not simply determine the superstructure; Gramscian, non-deterministic Marxism survives the critiques better than the crude structural version.

Result: A top-band plan defends the base/superstructure insight, uses the Althusser-Gramsci debate to escape economic determinism, weighs Weberian and postmodern critiques, and judges a non-deterministic Marxism the most defensible position.

Typical mistakes

Treating Marxism or feminism as a single, unified position rather than a family of competing strands.
Describing exploitation or patriarchy without linking it to specific mechanisms (surplus value, ideology, the domestic division of labour).

Active revision

Applying material from the Item and your knowledge, evaluate the Marxist view of the relationship between the economic base and the rest of society. (20 marks)

Active recall

Recall the key points — then reveal.

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

Social action theories and interactionism#

AdvancedAQA 7192 Theory and MethodsDfE GCE Sociology subject content

Labelling and the self-fulfilling prophecy

Fig. 3Interactionists show how a label can become a self-fulfilling prophecy - a process invisible to structural theory.

Social action (or interpretivist) theories reject the macro, structural emphasis of functionalism and Marxism and build sociology from the bottom up, out of the meaningful actions of individuals. Weber laid the foundations, arguing that adequate sociological explanation requires both an account of the structural causes of behaviour and verstehen - an empathetic understanding of the subjective meanings actors attach to it. He classified action into four types (instrumentally rational, value-rational, traditional and affectual), insisting that behaviour cannot be understood without grasping the meaning it holds for the actor. Weber thus straddles the structure-action divide, taking both causes and meanings seriously.

Symbolic interactionism, developed by Mead and systematised by Blumer, takes meaning as its central concept. Blumer's three principles are that people act towards things on the basis of the meanings those things hold for them, that meanings arise out of social interaction, and that meanings are handled and modified through an interpretive process. Society, on this view, is not a fixed structure that precedes individuals but an ongoing accomplishment, continually produced and negotiated as people interpret one another's actions through shared symbols, above all language. This is a fundamentally different picture from the structural one: order is achieved from moment to moment in interaction, not imposed from above.

Two further developments are essential. Labelling theory, associated with Becker, examines how definitions imposed by powerful others - the labels 'deviant', 'failure', 'ideal pupil' - come to shape people's identities and behaviour, sometimes producing a self-fulfilling prophecy. Goffman's dramaturgical model portrays social life as theatre: individuals are actors managing the impressions others form of them, performing on a 'front stage' while relaxing 'backstage', engaged in continual impression management. These ideas power much of the analysis in the education, crime and media topics, showing how the interactionist lens illuminates processes invisible to structural theory.

The evaluation balances genuine insight against real limitations. Action theories restore the active, meaning-making individual that structural theories neglect, and they generate rich, valid, qualitative accounts of how social reality is constructed in interaction. But critics charge that they are too micro - good at describing face-to-face encounters but weak at explaining the wider structures of power and inequality that frame those encounters. Where does the label of 'deviant' or 'failure' come from, if not from a structure of power the interactionist cannot see? Structural theorists argue that interactionism describes the surface of social life while missing the deeper forces shaping it, while attempts at synthesis, such as Giddens's structuration, try to combine the strengths of both. The most convincing position treats action and structure as complementary lenses rather than rivals.

Worked example

Evaluating the micro focus of interactionism

Assess the criticism that interactionism is too focused on the micro level to explain society.

State the criticism
Structural theorists argue interactionism describes face-to-face encounters but cannot explain the wider structures of power and inequality that shape them.
Illustrate the gap
Labelling shows a 'deviant' label producing deviance, but not where the power to label, or the pattern of who gets labelled, comes from.
Defend the perspective
Interactionists reply that structures only exist through the interactions that reproduce them; the micro level is where social reality is actually made.
Point to synthesis
Giddens's structuration argues structure and action are two sides of one process, suggesting the micro/macro split is a false choice.
Judgement
Conclude that the micro focus is a real limitation for explaining structural inequality but a genuine strength for explaining how that inequality is enacted - the perspectives are complementary.

Result: Interactionism's micro focus limits its grasp of structural power but uniquely reveals how social reality is constructed in interaction; the strongest position combines micro and macro rather than choosing between them.

Typical mistakes

Confusing interactionism's focus on meaning with a claim that structure does not exist - the criticism is that it neglects structure, not that it denies it entirely.
Using Goffman or labelling as mere illustration without linking them to the broader interpretivist argument about the construction of social reality.

Active revision

Outline and explain two ways in which social action theories differ from structural theories. (10 marks)

Active recall

Recall the key points — then reveal.

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

Postmodernism, late modernity and the New Right#

AdvancedAQA 7192 Theory and MethodsDfE GCE Sociology subject content

Modern versus postmodern theory

Fig. 4Modernist perspectives seek a general explanation of society; postmodernism rejects such metanarratives - late modernity sits in between.

Postmodernism argues that society has entered a new epoch that the classical perspectives, born of the modern industrial age, can no longer describe. Lyotard characterises the postmodern condition as an 'incredulity towards metanarratives' - a loss of faith in the big, all-explaining stories, including Marxism and functionalism, that claimed to reveal the direction and truth of history. Baudrillard argues that in a media-saturated society the distinction between reality and its representation has collapsed into 'hyperreality', where signs and images (simulacra) no longer refer to any underlying reality. Society, on this account, is fragmented, diverse and unstable, and identity becomes a matter of consumption and choice rather than fixed structural position.

Theorists of late (or 'high') modernity offer a related but distinct diagnosis, insisting that we are living not after modernity but in an intensified version of it. Giddens emphasises reflexivity - the way individuals and institutions continually monitor and revise their action in the light of new information - and the 'disembedding' of social relations from local contexts by globalisation. Beck describes a 'risk society' in which the central problems are no longer the distribution of goods but the management of manufactured risks (environmental, technological, economic) that cut across class. Unlike the postmodernists, Giddens and Beck retain a belief that society can still be analysed rationally and even reshaped, refusing the postmodern abandonment of grand explanation.

The New Right is a further influential perspective, politically conservative and economically liberal, that overlaps with functionalism in valuing social order and shared values but diverges in its distrust of state intervention. It argues that an over-generous welfare state creates a dependent 'underclass' (Murray), undermines the traditional nuclear family and self-reliance, and that markets and individual responsibility produce better outcomes than state planning. New Right ideas have been highly consequential in policy - in marketisation in education, in welfare reform, and in debates about the family and poverty - so the perspective matters practically as well as theoretically.

Evaluation of these perspectives is sharp. Postmodernism is credited with capturing real features of contemporary life - media saturation, diversity, the decline of old certainties - but is criticised as self-refuting (its claim that no theory can be true is itself a theory), politically disabling (if all accounts are equally valid, critique of injustice loses its footing), and empirically overstated (class and structure demonstrably still shape life chances). Late modernity is praised as a more balanced middle path. The New Right is attacked for blaming the poor for structural problems, for ignoring the evidence against underclass theory, and for an idealised view of markets and the traditional family. Setting these newer perspectives against the classical ones - do metanarratives still hold? does class still matter? - is a hallmark of the strongest theory essays.

Worked example

Evaluating postmodernism

Assess the postmodernist claim that class no longer structures society.

State the claim
Postmodernists argue society is fragmented and identity is now based on consumption and choice, so class has lost its structuring power.
Credit the insight
Media saturation, diversity and the decline of old class communities are real features postmodernism captures well.
Apply the evidence critique
But patterned inequalities in health, education, crime and mortality by class persist and are well documented - class demonstrably still shapes life chances.
Apply the logical critique
The claim that no theory can be true is self-refuting, and if all accounts are equally valid, critique of injustice loses its basis.
Judgement
Conclude that postmodernism identifies real cultural changes but overstates the death of class; late modernity offers a more balanced account.

Result: Postmodernism rightly notes cultural fragmentation but the persistence of class inequalities in life chances, together with its self-refuting logic, means class remains a structuring force - late modernity is the more defensible position.

Typical mistakes

Merging postmodernism and late modernity, or treating the New Right as identical to functionalism, when each has a distinct position.
Accepting the postmodern claim that class no longer matters without confronting the evidence that it still structures life chances.

Active revision

Applying material from the Item and your knowledge, evaluate the postmodernist view that sociology can no longer rely on the perspectives of the modern era. (20 marks)

Active recall

Recall the key points — then reveal.

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

Theory and methods: positivism, interpretivism and the PET factors#

StandardAQA 7192 Theory and MethodsDfE GCE Sociology subject content

Theory drives method

Fig. 5Theoretical assumptions drive method choice: positivism favours quantitative reliability, interpretivism favours qualitative validity.

The central claim of the methods strand is that theory and method are inseparable: a sociologist's assumptions about the nature of social reality dictate what counts as good evidence and therefore which methods they favour. Positivists hold that society is an objective reality made up of social facts that exist independently of individuals and can be studied with methods modelled on the natural sciences. They seek to discover cause-and-effect laws, prefer quantitative data that can be measured, correlated and generalised, and prize reliability (the method can be repeated to give the same results) and representativeness (the sample reflects the wider population). Durkheim's study of suicide, using official statistics to establish correlations, is the classic positivist model.

Interpretivists reject this scientific model for the study of human beings. Because people, unlike objects, act on the basis of meanings, interpretivists argue that sociology must uncover those subjective meanings through verstehen rather than measure external behaviour. They prefer qualitative data - rich, detailed accounts from unstructured interviews, participant observation and personal documents - and prize validity (the data give a true, authentic picture of how people actually see their world). Where positivists distrust qualitative methods as unreliable and subjective, interpretivists distrust quantitative methods as imposing the researcher's categories and missing the meanings that make behaviour intelligible. The positivism-interpretivism divide is thus the methodological expression of the structure-action debate.

In practice the choice of method is shaped by three sets of factors, conventionally grouped as practical, ethical and theoretical - the PET framework. Practical factors include time, money, access to the group, the researcher's characteristics, and the nature of the topic. Ethical factors include informed consent, confidentiality, protection from harm, avoiding deception, and the special duties owed to vulnerable groups - concerns codified in the British Sociological Association's guidelines. Theoretical factors are the positivist or interpretivist commitments just described, together with reliability, validity and representativeness. A method is rarely chosen because it is best in the abstract; it is chosen because it fits the practical constraints, ethical requirements and theoretical goals of a particular study.

Two further distinctions organise the whole field. Data may be primary (collected first-hand by the sociologist for their own purpose, as in a survey or observation) or secondary (already in existence, such as official statistics or documents). It may be quantitative (numerical) or qualitative (in words). These distinctions cross-cut: a questionnaire yields primary quantitative data, unstructured interviews yield primary qualitative data, official statistics are secondary quantitative data, and personal diaries are secondary qualitative data. Some sociologists advocate methodological pluralism or triangulation - combining methods so that each compensates for the others' weaknesses and findings can be cross-checked - as a way beyond the positivist-interpretivist stand-off. Mastery of this framework is what makes the methods-in-context and theory-and-methods essays possible.

The PET factors in choosing a method

Fig. 6Method choice is shaped by practical, ethical and theoretical (PET) factors together, not by abstract superiority.

Worked example

Justifying a method choice with PET

A researcher wants to study the experiences of pupils excluded from school. Using the PET framework, justify a suitable method.

Clarify the aim
The aim is to understand excluded pupils' subjective experiences - an interpretivist goal prizing validity over measurement.
Theoretical factor
This favours a qualitative method such as unstructured interviews, which can uncover meanings a questionnaire would miss.
Practical factor
Access is difficult and the group is small and hard to reach, making a large representative survey impractical - again favouring in-depth interviews with a small sample.
Ethical factor
The pupils are minors and vulnerable, so informed consent (including from guardians), confidentiality and protection from harm are essential; a sensitive interview allows this better than covert methods.
Weigh the trade-off
The gain in validity is bought at the cost of reliability and representativeness - findings are rich but not easily generalised.

Result: The PET analysis justifies unstructured interviews: the interpretivist aim and difficult access favour depth over breadth, and the vulnerability of the subjects requires the ethical safeguards a sensitive interview allows - accepting reduced reliability and representativeness as the price of validity.

Typical mistakes

Discussing methods in the abstract without connecting them to positivist or interpretivist assumptions.
Confusing reliability (repeatability) with validity (truthfulness) - they are distinct and often traded off against each other.

Active revision

Outline and explain two theoretical factors that influence a sociologist's choice of research method. (10 marks)

Active recall

Recall the key points — then reveal.

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

The main research methods and their evaluation#

StandardAQA 7192 Theory and MethodsDfE GCE Sociology subject content

Classifying research methods

Fig. 7Methods are classified by primary/secondary and quantitative/qualitative - the choice follows the study's aims and the PET factors.

Questionnaires and social surveys are the workhorses of positivist research. Distributed to large samples, they produce standardised, quantitative data that are cheap to gather, reliable (easily repeated) and representative if the sample is well drawn, allowing correlations and generalisation. Their weaknesses are interpretivist: pre-set questions impose the researcher's categories, respondents may lie or misremember, response rates are often low, and the method captures little of the meaning behind answers - low validity. Structured interviews share these strengths and weaknesses, being essentially questionnaires read aloud, while unstructured and semi-structured interviews sacrifice reliability and representativeness for the depth, flexibility and validity prized by interpretivists.

Observation ranges along two axes: participant versus non-participant, and overt versus covert. Participant observation, favoured by interpretivists, immerses the researcher in the group and can yield uniquely valid insight into how members actually see and do things, capturing meanings no questionnaire could reach. But it raises acute problems: gaining and keeping access, the risk of 'going native' and losing objectivity, the observer effect (people change behaviour when watched), the difficulty of recording data, low reliability and representativeness, and, for covert observation, serious ethical objections around deception and consent. Non-participant and structured observation trade intimacy for greater detachment and replicability.

Experiments occupy a special place because they are the classic scientific method, yet are hard to apply to society. Laboratory experiments offer control and reliability but are artificial, small-scale, ethically constrained and vulnerable to the Hawthorne effect, so they capture little of real social life. Field experiments, conducted in natural settings (as in studies of teacher expectations), gain realism but lose control and raise consent problems. The comparative method - comparing societies or groups to isolate the effect of a variable, as Durkheim did with suicide - is a 'thought experiment' that avoids practical and ethical difficulties but cannot achieve true control. The scarcity of usable experiments is itself a key argument in the debate about whether sociology can be a science.

Secondary sources are indispensable and their evaluation is a distinct skill. Official statistics are cheap, large-scale, readily available and, for positivists, hard social facts; but interpretivists and Marxists argue they are social constructions - the product of decisions about what to count and how, so that, for example, crime statistics measure the activity of the police as much as of criminals. Documents (personal, such as diaries and letters, and public, such as government reports and media output) can offer rich, valid, historically deep qualitative data, but raise problems of authenticity, credibility, representativeness and meaning, assessed through content analysis or more interpretive reading. No method is best in itself; each is a bundle of strengths and weaknesses that a study weighs against its aims - which is precisely the judgement the methods-in-context and theory-and-methods questions demand.

Worked example

Evaluating official statistics as a social construction

Assess the view that official statistics are hard social facts rather than social constructions.

State the positivist case
Positivists treat official statistics as objective, cheap, large-scale social facts, ideal for spotting correlations and testing hypotheses (as Durkheim used suicide rates).
State the constructionist critique
Interpretivists argue statistics are the outcome of human decisions - what gets defined, reported, recorded and counted - so they measure the labelling process as much as the behaviour.
Give the crime example
Crime statistics reflect police priorities, public reporting and legal definitions; the 'dark figure' of unrecorded crime shows they are not a transparent record.
Add the Marxist point
Marxists add that the state selects and presents statistics in ways that serve powerful interests, so they are ideological as well as constructed.
Judgement
Conclude that official statistics are useful but must be treated as socially constructed - their value depends on understanding how they were produced.

Result: Official statistics are best regarded not as transparent social facts but as social constructions whose production must be interrogated - a judgement that credits their practical usefulness while accepting the interpretivist and Marxist critique.

Typical mistakes

Listing generic strengths and weaknesses without applying them to the specific research question - the methods-in-context skill requires application.
Forgetting that reliability and validity often trade off, so praising a method for both without noticing the tension.

Active revision

Outline and explain two limitations of using official statistics as a source of sociological data. (10 marks)

Active recall

Recall the key points — then reveal.

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

References & sources

Sources

Department for Education

GCE AS and A level subject content for sociology

AQA

AQA AS and A-level Sociology (7192) specification

Sociological Theories, Perspectives and Methods

6 sections~26 min reading time3 competenciesLevel Standard 3 · Advanced 3

Sociological Theories, Perspectives and Methods

Key points

Evaluating the functionalist theory of consensus

Key points

Model essay plan: the base and the superstructure

Key points

Evaluating the micro focus of interactionism

Key points

Evaluating postmodernism

Key points

Justifying a method choice with PET

Key points

Evaluating official statistics as a social construction

Sources

Sociological Theories, Perspectives and Methods

Key points

Evaluating the functionalist theory of consensus

Key points

Model essay plan: the base and the superstructure

Key points

Evaluating the micro focus of interactionism

Key points

Evaluating postmodernism

Key points

Justifying a method choice with PET

Key points

Evaluating official statistics as a social construction

Sources