Although it’s been around for a couple of hundred years, Sociology is likely to be a new subject to most post-16 students.  At A level, students are introduced to the main theoretical and methodological approaches within Sociology via the study of specific areas of social life.

At Chantry High School, like most of the rest of the country, we follow the AQA qualification.  AS students study the Sociology of Families and Households and the Sociology of Education.  The latter incorporates a section on theory and methods in the study of education.  At A2 the focus is on Sociology of World Development and Stratification and Differentiation (ie class, gender, ethnicity and age).  Again, the latter has a section on theory and methods in context.

The emphasis throughout is on contemporary issues, although some “classic” material from the 19th and 20th centuries is also examined.  Sociology does not set out to solve the world’s problems, but students do gain new insights into familiar problems such as class or racial conflicts, divorce and single parenthood, differences in educational attainment or relationships between richer and poorer nations.  As such, Sociology gives you the opportunity to consider the world you inhabit in a fresh way, and introduces you to the world of academic discourse in a way really only matched at A level by the study of Philosophy.