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Flashcards · 7192 · Topic 1
Education with Theory and Methods flashcards
22 cards on Topic 1, subtopics 3.1.1 to 3.1.3. Pick a subtopic or study them all.
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3.1.1 Education
- How do functionalists see the role of education?
- Education performs secondary socialisation, builds social solidarity, and allocates people to suitable jobs on merit (meritocratic role allocation).
- What is the correspondence principle?
- Bowles and Gintis's Marxist idea that school's hierarchy, discipline and extrinsic rewards mirror the capitalist workplace, producing a compliant workforce.
- Material vs cultural explanations of class differences in achievement
- Material: the cost of resources, poor housing and diet. Cultural: differences in cultural capital (Bourdieu) and speech codes (restricted vs elaborated) that schools reward unequally.
- Give three explanations of boys' underachievement relative to girls
- The decline of traditional male manual jobs reducing motivation, laddish subcultures that see effort as unmasculine, and a lack of male role models in primary teaching.
- Give three explanations of girls' improved achievement
- Changing ambitions linked to feminism and wider career opportunities, assessment styles such as coursework argued to suit girls' study habits, and teacher expectations favouring girls' classroom behaviour.
- How do in-school processes explain ethnic differences in achievement?
- Teacher labelling and expectations, and setting and streaming that place some minority ethnic pupils in lower groups, alongside material deprivation outside school.
- What is marketisation of education?
- Introducing market forces such as parental choice, competition between schools and league tables, so that schools compete for pupils like firms for customers.
- Policies for equality of opportunity vs equality of outcome
- Opportunity: removing barriers so all can compete fairly, e.g. comprehensive schools. Outcome: actively reducing gaps in results, e.g. extra funding targeted at disadvantaged pupils.
3.1.2 Methods in Context
- What does a methods in context answer have to combine?
- A specific feature of the named research method with a specific feature of researching that education topic. A method-only or context-only answer scores low.
- Why is access a practical issue in researching schools?
- Researchers need gatekeeper permission from head teachers, parents and often ethics committees, which can limit or delay research.
- How can power and status affect research with pupils?
- Pupils may see researchers as authority figures like teachers, so they may give answers they think are expected, reducing validity.
- What ethical issues arise in researching children in education?
- Informed consent (children may not fully understand, so parental consent is needed), safeguarding and protection from harm, and confidentiality.
- Why might structured interviews of teachers be reliable but lack validity?
- Standardised questions can be repeated to give comparable answers (reliable), but may not let teachers explain the complex, often unconscious reasons behind their expectations of pupils (less valid).
- How should you use the item in a methods in context question?
- Draw directly on its details (e.g. teachers being busy, observation not always being possible) and link each to a feature of the method, ending with a judgement on suitability.
3.1.3 Theory and Methods
- Primary vs secondary data
- Primary data are collected by the sociologist, e.g. by questionnaire or observation. Secondary data already exist, e.g. official statistics and documents.
- Quantitative vs qualitative data
- Quantitative data are numerical and suit positivists. Qualitative data are descriptive, showing meanings and experiences, and suit interpretivists.
- Theoretical, practical and ethical factors in choosing a method
- Theoretical: the researcher's view of reliability, validity and representativeness. Practical: time, money, access, skills. Ethical: consent, harm, confidentiality and deception.
- Participant vs non-participant observation
- Participant: the researcher joins in with the group, gaining insight into meanings (valid). Non-participant: the researcher watches from outside, less risk of going native but less insight.
- Why do sociologists rarely use laboratory experiments?
- They are artificial, can only study small-scale behaviour, raise ethical problems, and cannot control the many variables affecting social life. Field experiments are used more.
- Official statistics: positivist vs interpretivist view
- Positivists see them as objective social facts useful for finding patterns and causes. Interpretivists see them as social constructions reflecting the decisions of those who record them.
- What are documents in sociological research?
- Written or visual material, personal (diaries, letters) or public (government reports, media). Judged by authenticity, credibility, representativeness and meaning (Scott).
- What is a pilot study?
- A small-scale trial of the research before the main study, to check questions, timing and procedures, improving reliability and validity.