Flashcards · 2251 · Topic 2

Paper 2 – Family, Education and Crime flashcards

52 cards on Topic 2, subtopics 4.1 to 6.3. Pick a subtopic or study them all.

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4.1 Family – What are the different types of families?

Horizontal vs vertical (beanpole) extended family: Horizontal: extended sideways to include aunts, uncles and cousins. Vertical (beanpole): several generations alive at once, with few relatives in each generation.
What is a modified extended family?: Relatives live apart but keep in close contact and support each other, e.g. by phone, visits and help with childcare.
What is an empty nest family?: A couple whose children have grown up and left home.
New Right vs postmodernist views on family diversity: New Right: diversity is a sign of dysfunction, and the traditional nuclear family is best. Postmodernist: diversity is positive, reflecting individual choice.
Name three alternatives to the family: Single person households, shared households, and friends as family.
Empty shell marriage vs serial monogamy: Empty shell marriage: the couple stay married but the relationship has ended emotionally. Serial monogamy: a series of marriages or partnerships, one after another.

4.2 Family – What is the role of the family for the individual and society?

What is the "warm bath" theory?: A functionalist idea (Parsons) that the family stabilises adult personalities, relieving the stress of working life like a warm bath.
What is the "loss of functions" debate?: The view that the family has lost functions such as education and health care to specialist institutions, against the view that it still performs key functions such as socialisation and emotional support.
How do Marxists see the family?: The family benefits capitalism: it reproduces class inequalities, passes on ideology, and acts as a unit of consumption that buys goods and so creates profit.
Joint vs segregated conjugal roles: Joint: partners share housework, childcare and decisions. Segregated: partners have separate roles, e.g. a male breadwinner and a female homemaker.
Dual burden vs triple shift: Dual burden: women doing paid work plus most housework. Triple shift: paid work, housework and emotion work (caring for family members' feelings).
Give one strength and one limitation of the functionalist view of the family: Strength: shows how the family meets important needs of individuals and society. Limitation: ignores conflict, inequality and abuse within families, as feminists point out.

4.3 Family – How is family life changing?

What is an ageing population, and what causes it?: A rising average age and a growing share of older people, caused by falling birth rates and rising life expectancy.
How did industrialisation change family structure?: It is often argued that industrialisation and urbanisation encouraged smaller, geographically mobile nuclear families, replacing the extended family as the main unit.
Give two reasons for rising divorce rates: Changes in societal attitudes (less stigma) and the changing status and power of women, who are more financially independent and less willing to stay in unhappy marriages.
What is the symmetrical family?: A family in which partners' roles are similar, both doing paid work and sharing housework and childcare (Young and Willmott). Feminists argue full symmetry is rare.
What is the pivot (sandwich) generation?: Middle-aged adults who care for both their own children and their ageing parents at the same time.
What are boomerang children?: Adult children who return to live with their parents, e.g. because of housing costs or after university.

5.1 Education – What is education and schooling?

Formal vs informal education: Formal education is planned, structured learning in schools and colleges, with a curriculum and tests. Informal education is learning outside institutions, e.g. from family, peers and the media.
Official curriculum vs hidden curriculum: The official curriculum is the planned subjects, syllabus content and testing. The hidden curriculum is the norms and values taught without being named as lessons, e.g. punctuality, conformity and gender roles.
Give one strength and one limitation of private schools: Strength: often smaller classes and better resources. Limitation: access depends on parents' ability to pay, so they can reproduce class inequality.
Selective vs non-selective schools: Selective schools choose pupils by ability, e.g. an entrance exam. Non-selective (comprehensive) schools take pupils of all abilities from their area.
Name three alternative approaches to education: Online learning, vocational learning (job-related skills) and progressive schooling (child-centred, with more pupil choice).

5.2 Education – What are the roles and functions of education?

What roles does education perform for functionalists?: Socialisation (passing on shared values), social control, economic (training a skilled workforce) and selective (role allocation, sorting people into suitable jobs by merit).
What is meritocracy?: A system in which rewards and positions are based on ability and effort rather than background. Functionalists believe education is meritocratic; Marxists call this a myth.
How do Marxists see the role of education?: It reproduces class inequality: it passes on capitalist ideology, rewards middle-class culture and cultural capital, and persuades pupils that failure is their own fault (the myth of meritocracy).
What is cultural capital?: The knowledge, language, tastes and attitudes of the middle class, which schools value and reward, giving middle-class pupils an advantage.
How do feminists see the role of education?: It perpetuates gender inequality through a patriarchal culture, gendered subject choices, teacher expectations and a lack of female role models in senior positions.

5.3 Education – What factors help to explain differences in educational achievement and experience?

Give a material explanation of class differences in achievement: Poorer families may lack money for resources, a quiet place to study and access to digital technology, which disadvantages their children.
How does labelling explain differences in achievement?: Teachers may label pupils (often working-class or minority ethnic pupils) as less able; pupils may accept the label, leading to a self-fulfilling prophecy of lower achievement.
Pro-school vs anti-school sub-cultures: Pro-school sub-cultures value education and gain status through success. Anti-school sub-cultures reject school values and gain status through rule-breaking, often after being placed in low sets.
Institutional racism vs ethnocentric curriculum: Institutional racism: discrimination built into the school's routines, such as setting and exclusions. Ethnocentric curriculum: one that gives priority to one culture, so some pupils feel excluded.
Give two reasons for global differences in educational achievement: Availability of schools and poverty, as well as access to education for girls, class sizes, cultural norms and access to the internet.
What is compensatory education?: Extra resources or programmes for disadvantaged children to make up for disadvantages outside school, e.g. pre-school schemes.

6.1 Crime, deviance and social control – What are crime, deviance and social control?

Crime vs deviance: Crime is behaviour that breaks the law. Deviance is behaviour that breaks social norms. They overlap but are not the same: some deviance is not criminal.
What is the relativity of crime and deviance?: What counts as crime or deviance varies within and between societies, cultures and situations, and over time.
Formal vs informal agencies of social control: Formal: the police, courts, armed forces, government and penal system. Informal: family, education, workplace, peer group, traditional and digital media, and religion.
White-collar vs green vs hate crime: White-collar/corporate crime: committed by people in their jobs or by companies, e.g. fraud. Green crime: harm to the environment. Hate crime: targeting victims because of their identity, e.g. race or religion.
Expressive vs instrumental crime: Expressive crime is driven by emotion, e.g. vandalism or violence. Instrumental crime aims at a material gain, e.g. theft or fraud.
Official statistics vs victim surveys vs self-report studies: Official statistics: crimes recorded by the police. Victim surveys: ask people about crimes committed against them. Self-report studies: ask people about crimes they have committed. Surveys reveal unreported crime.
Why is some crime unreported or unrecorded?: Victims may be unaware, afraid, ashamed or think the police will not act; the police may decide an incident is too minor or not a crime. This "dark figure" makes official statistics incomplete.

6.2 Crime, deviance and social control – What are the patterns of and explanations for crime and deviance?

What is status frustration?: Young people, especially working-class boys, who cannot gain status through legitimate means such as school success form sub-cultures that give status through deviance (Cohen).
What is the chivalry thesis?: The claim that the mostly male criminal justice system treats women more leniently, so female crime is under-recorded.
Material vs relative deprivation: Material deprivation: lacking money and basic resources. Relative deprivation: feeling deprived compared with others in society, which may lead to crime even when not absolutely poor.
What is strain theory?: A functionalist theory (Merton): crime happens when people cannot reach society's goals, such as wealth, by legitimate means, so some turn to illegitimate means.
What is a moral panic?: An exaggerated public reaction, often driven by the media, to a group seen as a threat to society's values (interactionist theory).
How do Marxists explain crime?: Capitalism creates inequality, greed and deprivation that lead to crime; laws protect the ruling class, and the crimes of the poor are policed more than white-collar crimes of the rich.

6.3 Crime, deviance and social control – How is crime dealt with in different societies?

Name the aims of punishment in the syllabus: Protection of citizens, deterrence, retribution, incapacitation and rehabilitation.
Deterrence vs retribution vs rehabilitation: Deterrence: punishment discourages the offender and others from crime. Retribution: the offender gets what they deserve. Rehabilitation: reforming the offender so they do not reoffend.
Give one strength and one limitation of prison: Strength: incapacitates offenders, protecting the public. Limitation: high reoffending rates; prison can act as a "school for crime" and is costly.
Give three examples of non-custodial sentences: Electronic tagging, curfews and restraining orders, as well as community sentences, fines and probation.
Community policing vs military-style policing: Community policing builds trust and cooperation with local people to prevent crime. Military-style policing uses force, weapons and tactics like an army, which may harm relations with the public.