AQA A Level Sociology Paper 1: Education Lecture Notes

Comprehensive flashcards covering key sociologists, theories, and educational policies found in AQA A Level Sociology Paper 1.

Social solidarity

The idea that all members of society feel together as part of something bigger, often maintained in schools through shared spaces like assemblies, uniforms, and common norms and values.

Durkheim

A functionalist who believed that education socializes people to teach them shared norms and values to maintain social solidarity.

Bridge theory

A concept by Parsons stating that school acts as a bridge between the family, which teaches particularistic standards, and wider society, which teaches universalistic standards.

Particularistic standards

Individual standards applied to a person within the family environment, often compared to siblings.

Universalistic standards

Collective standards applied to everyone in the classroom or workplace to prepare individuals for wider society.

Meritocracy

A system where social advancement is based on individual talent, effort, and achievement rather than social class, wealth, or external factors.

Specialized skills

The functionalist view that school teaches skills required for specific future occupations, such as maths for nursing, to maintain consensus in society.

Davis and Moore

Sociologists who discussed role allocation, the process of using the exam system to sift high achievers into the best roles in society.

Althusser

A Marxist who argued that education is an ideological state apparatus that keeps the boogeoisi in power by reproducing and justifying inequalities.

Ideological state apparatus

A part of society, such as education or the media, used to maintain ruling class power by indoctrination.

Ethnocentric curriculum

A curriculum that reflects a singular cultural background, often failing to reflect diverse perspectives.

Bowles and Gintis

Marxists who developed the correspondence principle, which refers to the way schooling mirrors the behaviors expected in the workplace.

Correspondence principle

The idea that the organization and environment of school (such as being passive and obedient) correspond to the exploitative nature of the workplace.

Hidden curriculum

The lessons taught in school that are not explicitly referred to on the formal curriculum, such as the value of extrinsic rewards like exams.

Paul Willis

A neo-Marxist who conducted the learning to labor study of $12$ working-class boys to investigate anti-school subcultures and resistance to indoctrination.

1944 Education Act

A policy introducing compulsory state education up to the age of $14$ and a tripartite system of grammar, secondary modern, and technical schools.

11 plus

An IQ test taken at age $11$ designed to measure a child's innate ability to determine their school placement in the tripartite system.

The Tripartite System

The division of education into three types of schools: grammar (20% of students), secondary modern, and technical schools.

Comprehensive education act (1965)

A policy that abolished selection at age $11$ and aimed to educate all children in the same secondary school regardless of class, ethnicity, or gender.

Marketization

The process of introducing market forces of consumer choice and competition between schools to drive up standards, treating schools like businesses.

Parenttocracy

The concept of greater parental choice regarding which schools their children attend.

Sure Start centers

A New Labour initiative offering childcare and parenting advice to boost the reading age of children and reduce the learning gap in deprived areas.

Educational maintenance allowance

A payment of $\text{£}10$ to $\text{£}30$ a week given to six-form students to encourage participation from working-class backgrounds.

Pupil Premium

Additional funding between $\text{£}900$ and $\text{£}2{,}400$ per student given to schools to improve the attainment of disadvantaged groups.

Globalization

The increasing interconnectedness of societies, causing constraints of geography on economic and social arrangements to decline.

Pisa league tables

The program for international students assessment used to rank countries in reading, writing, and maths every $3$ to $5$ years.

British values

A set of values taught in schools including liberty, democracy, rule of law, mutual respect, and tolerance.

Labeling theory

The idea that teachers judge pupils by characteristics like appearance, gender, class, and ethnicity rather than intelligence.

Self-fulfilling prophecy

A process where labeling someone causes them to internalize and live up to that label, such as the Pigmillion in the classroom study.

Educational triage

A concept used by Gilborn and Noodle describing how schools sift students into those who will pass anyway, those with potential (borderline), and lost causes.

Ideal pupil

The mental profile teachers hold of a model student, often favoring middle-class pupils seen as cooperative and well-prepared.

Differentiation and polarization

Lacy's terms for how teachers label students and how students react by adopting extreme pro-school or anti-school subcultures.

Material deprivation

The inability to afford basic resources such as food, heating, or equipment, which negatively impacts educational achievement.

Bernstein

A sociologist who studied speech codes, identifying the restricted code used by the working class and the elaborate code used by the middle/upper class.

Habitus

A term coined by Bard referring to the norms, values, attitudes, and behaviors of a particular social group or class.

Sugarman

A theorist who identified four aspects of working-class culture: fatalism, collectivism, immediate gratification, and present time orientation.

Cultural capital

Bord's term for the knowledge, values, and language of the dominant middle-class culture that provides educational advantages.

Feminization of the school environment

The argument by Epstein that schools are geared towards girls, with a lack of male role models as 90\text{%} of primary teachers are female.

Moynihan

A theorist who described the vicious cycle of cultural deprivation where inadequate socialization leads to school failure and inadequate parenting.

Suil

A researcher who attributed black male failure at school to a lack of tough love, a lack of a father figure, and street/gang culture.