AQA A-level Sociology (7192): Paper 2 – Culture and identity – Study Guide

This guide covers Culture and Identity for AQA A-level Sociology (7192), as set out in the AQA AS and A-level Sociology (7191, 7192) specification, Version 1.2 (14 October 2021). The topic is section 4.2.1 of the A-level content (the specification-at-a-glance list also shows it as 3.2.1). It is assessed in Paper 2: Topics in Sociology, Section A, where it is one of the four option 1 topics.

Use it with the revision notes and the practice questions. For the whole course, see the AQA A-level Sociology hub and the 7192 checklist.

Coverage table

Syllabus reference	What you must know or be able to do (from the document)	Where assessed
4.2.1	Different conceptions of culture, including subculture, mass culture, folk culture, high and low culture, popular culture and global culture	Paper 2, Section A (option 1)
4.2.1	The socialisation process and the role of the agencies of socialisation	Paper 2, Section A (option 1)
4.2.1	The self, identity and difference as both socially caused and socially constructed	Paper 2, Section A (option 1)
4.2.1	The relationship of identity to age, disability, ethnicity, gender, nationality, sexuality and social class in contemporary society	Paper 2, Section A (option 1)
4.2.1	The relationship of identity to production, consumption and globalisation	Paper 2, Section A (option 1)
4.2 (all topics)	Topic areas in relation to the two core themes; both the evidence of and the sociological explanations for the content	Paper 2

How Paper 2 works

The specification prints Paper 2: Topics in Sociology as a 2 hour written exam worth 80 marks and 33.3% of the A-level. Section A is “one from option 1: 4.2.1, 4.2.2, 4.2.3 or 4.2.4” (Culture and Identity; Families and Households; Health; Work, Poverty and Welfare). Section B is “one from option 2: 4.2.5, 4.2.6, 4.2.7 or 4.2.8” (Beliefs in Society; Global Development; The Media; Stratification and Differentiation). Each section is extended writing, 40 marks. So if you choose Culture and Identity, you answer it in Section A and pick a different topic from option 2 for Section B.

The specification asks you to study each topic through the two core themes: socialisation, culture and identity; and social differentiation, power and stratification. It also asks for both the evidence and the sociological explanations, and for links to other topics. The assessment objectives are AO1 (knowledge and understanding), AO2 (application) and AO3 (analysis and evaluation). The exact question styles are set by AQA; your teacher will confirm them.

Conceptions of culture

Culture is the shared way of life of a group: its norms, values, beliefs, language, knowledge and material objects. Sociologists disagree about how to divide it up.

• High culture: works seen as having lasting artistic value, such as opera, classical music and literary fiction. Matthew Arnold described culture as “the best which has been thought and said”. It is linked to elite groups.
• Low culture: entertainment seen as having less artistic worth. The label itself is a value judgement.
• Folk culture: the culture of ordinary people in pre-industrial communities, made by them and passed on by word of mouth, such as folk songs, dances and local crafts.
• Mass culture: standardised, commercial culture produced for large audiences in industrial societies.
• Popular culture: the culture most people enjoy, such as soap operas, pop music and sport. Unlike “mass culture”, the term need not imply that audiences are passive.
• Subculture: a group sharing some norms and values that differ from the wider culture, such as a youth style.
• Global culture: products, brands, images and styles that circulate across many societies, helped by global media and trade.

Explanations. The Frankfurt School Marxists Theodor Adorno and Max Horkheimer argued that a “culture industry” produces standardised products that keep people passive and distracted from exploitation. Conservative critics such as F. R. Leavis saw mass culture as a threat to high culture. Dominic Strinati (1995) criticised mass culture theory as elitist: it treats audiences as passive and ignores how people choose and reinterpret what they consume. Herbert Gans (1974) argued there are different “taste cultures”, none of which is simply better than another. Postmodernists argue that the boundary between high and popular culture has broken down: a classical aria can be used in an advert, and a television drama can be studied at university.

The Birmingham Centre for Contemporary Cultural Studies saw youth subcultures as symbolic resistance by working-class youth (Hall and Jefferson, Resistance through Rituals, 1976). Dick Hebdige (1979) analysed how punks took everyday objects, such as safety pins, and gave them new meanings. Critics argue this reads too much meaning into style. Later writers prefer the idea of loose, temporary “neo-tribes”, where young people move between styles by choice.

Worked paragraph. Knowledge: mass culture theorists argue that commercial culture makes audiences passive. Application: a streaming service that recommends near-identical series to millions of viewers seems to fit this view. Analysis: this would mean shared culture is shaped by profit, not by the people who use it. Evaluation: however, Strinati’s criticism applies, because viewers also make fan videos, debate plots online and reject shows, which suggests an active audience. Postmodernists would add that the same viewer may watch opera and reality television in the same week.

Socialisation and its agencies

Socialisation is the lifelong process of learning the culture of a society. Primary socialisation happens in early childhood, mainly in the family. Secondary socialisation continues through education, peer groups, the media, religion and the workplace. Agencies use rewards and sanctions to encourage conformity.

Functionalists see socialisation as the way a value consensus is passed on. Talcott Parsons saw the family as the main agency for the primary socialisation of children and the stabilisation of adult personalities. Marxists see agencies, especially education and the media, as passing on ruling-class ideology. Feminists focus on gender socialisation. Ann Oakley described manipulation (encouraging or discouraging behaviour seen as suitable for a child’s sex) and canalisation (channelling children towards gender-typed toys and activities). Sue Sharpe (1976; 1994) interviewed working-class girls and found their priorities shifted from love and marriage in the 1970s to careers and independence by the 1990s, which suggests socialisation changes over time.

Interactionists stress that socialisation is active. George Herbert Mead argued that children learn to take the role of others, first in play and then in organised games, until they can see themselves through the “generalised other”. Charles Cooley’s “looking-glass self” describes how we form a self-image from how we think others see us.

Evaluation. Dennis Wrong (1961) criticised the “oversocialised” view of people, which treats them as puppets of their culture. Postmodernists argue that the media and peer groups now compete with the family, so identity is less fixed by early socialisation.

Worked paragraph. Knowledge: canalisation channels children into gendered activities. Application: a toy shop that places science kits in a “boys” aisle is an example. Analysis: this may help explain why some girls later see science as “not for them”, linking socialisation to differentiation. Evaluation: however, interactionists would argue children can resist such cues, and Sharpe’s later findings show gendered expectations do shift.

The self, identity and difference: socially caused or socially constructed?

Identity is how individuals see themselves and how others see them. Difference is how identity is defined against others: being “us” depends on there being a “them”.

• Socially caused (structural view): identity is shaped by social structures such as class, the economy and the family. Functionalists and Marxists take this view.
• Socially constructed (action view): identity is created and negotiated through interaction, language and meaning. Interactionists and postmodernists take this view.

Erving Goffman (1959) used a dramaturgical analogy: people perform roles “front stage” and relax “backstage”, managing the impressions they give. In Stigma (1963) he showed how people with a “spoiled identity” manage information about themselves. Anthony Giddens (1991) described identity in late modernity as a reflexive project: people constantly rework their own life story. Stuart Hall (1990) argued that cultural identity is a matter of “becoming” as well as “being”. Richard Jenkins argued that identity has an internal side (how we see ourselves) and an external side (how others label us), and that the two shape each other.

Evaluation. Structural views explain patterns, such as why class still predicts life chances, but can make people seem passive. Action views capture choice and change, but can ignore the constraints of money, discrimination and power. Many sociologists combine both.

Identity and age, disability, ethnicity, gender, nationality, sexuality and class

Age. Age stages, such as childhood, youth and old age, are given different meanings in different societies. Youth has often been linked to subcultures and consumer markets. Mike Featherstone and Mike Hepworth described a “mask of ageing”: older people may feel younger inside than their bodies suggest. Some argue that consumer culture now lets people resist ageing identities, though this depends on income.

Disability. The medical model sees disability as an individual impairment to be treated. The social model, associated with Mike Oliver (1990), argues that people are disabled by barriers in society, such as inaccessible buildings and attitudes. Tom Shakespeare (2006) argued that the social model can ignore the real effects of impairment. Goffman’s work on stigma explains how labels can become a “master status”.

Ethnicity. Ethnic identity is based on shared culture, such as religion, language and history. Tariq Modood and colleagues’ Fourth National Survey of Ethnic Minorities (1997), which included a chapter on culture and identity, stressed the diversity between Britain’s minority groups, so there is no single “ethnic minority” identity. Paul Gilroy (1993) described a diasporic “Black Atlantic” culture that mixes African, Caribbean, American and European influences, and Les Back (1996) studied how young people in multi-ethnic urban areas form hybrid identities that mix cultural sources. Critics warn that a focus on hybridity can underplay racism and exclusion.

Gender. Raewyn Connell described hegemonic masculinity, the dominant ideal of being a man, with other masculinities ranked below it. Máirtín Mac an Ghaill (1994) linked a “crisis of masculinity” to the decline of traditional male manual jobs. Judith Butler (1990) argued gender is performative: it is produced by repeated acts rather than expressing a fixed inner nature. Critics argue Butler’s approach says less about material inequalities such as pay.

Nationality. Benedict Anderson (1983) called nations “imagined communities”: members will never meet most other members, yet feel a bond. Michael Billig (1995) described banal nationalism, the everyday reminders of nationhood such as flags in everyday places and “the weather” in the national press. Debates around the 2014 Scottish independence referendum and the 2016 EU referendum show that national identity in the UK is contested.

Sexuality. Social constructionists such as Jeffrey Weeks argue that sexual identities are historically specific. Michel Foucault argued that “the homosexual” emerged as a category of person in nineteenth-century medical and legal discourse. Heteronormativity is the assumption that heterosexuality is the norm. Legal change in England and Wales, from the Sexual Offences Act 1967 to the Marriage (Same Sex Couples) Act 2013, shows shifting public definitions. Essentialist critics argue that sexual orientation is not simply a social choice.

Social class. Marxists see class identity rooted in economic position. Pierre Bourdieu argued that cultural tastes act as markers of class. Beverley Skeggs (1997) found that working-class women worked hard to be seen as “respectable” to avoid being judged by middle-class standards. The Great British Class Survey (Savage and colleagues, 2013) used economic, cultural and social capital to identify seven classes, from the “elite” to the “precariat”. Jan Pakulski and Malcolm Waters (1996) argued class identity has faded as consumption replaces production as the basis of identity.

Worked paragraph. Knowledge: the social model locates disability in social barriers. Application: a wheelchair user who cannot enter a local cinema is “disabled” by a missing ramp, not by the impairment itself. Analysis: this shifts the focus from individual treatment to changing society, and supports collective identities in disability rights movements. Evaluation: however, Shakespeare argues that pain or fatigue may limit people even where barriers are removed, so both social and bodily factors matter.

Identity, production, consumption and globalisation

Production. In industrial societies, identity was often tied to work and community. Coal is Our Life (Dennis, Henriques and Slaughter, 1956) described a mining town where work shaped family life, leisure and solidarity. De-industrialisation weakened such identities.

Consumption. Thorstein Veblen (1899) described conspicuous consumption: buying goods to display status. Postmodernists argue that people now build identities by choosing brands, styles and leisure. Zygmunt Bauman (1998) argued that people who cannot afford to take part become “flawed consumers”, excluded from a consumer society. Critics note that consumer choice is shaped by advertising and by income.

Globalisation. Hall (1992) suggested three possible outcomes for national identities: erosion through cultural homogenisation; strengthening as a form of resistance; and the rise of new, hybrid identities. George Ritzer’s McDonaldisation thesis (1993) points to homogenisation. Glocalisation describes global products adapted to local tastes. Global media and migration can create diasporic identities that cross borders.

Worked paragraph. Knowledge: postmodernists argue identity is now built through consumption. Application: a young person who curates a “vintage” style from charity shops and online resale apps is choosing an identity. Analysis: this fits the view that identity is fluid and self-made. Evaluation: however, Bauman’s idea of flawed consumers shows that choice depends on money, and Skeggs’s work suggests others still judge styles through class.

Common errors

• Treating “mass culture” and “popular culture” as identical. Mass culture usually carries a critical, top-down meaning; popular culture need not.
• Listing agencies of socialisation without explaining how they socialise (rewards, sanctions, role models, imitation).
• Confusing “socially caused” (structural) with “socially constructed” (action). Name the perspectives behind each.
• Writing about one source of identity, such as gender, when the question asks about another, such as nationality.
• Describing hybrid identity without evidence or without evaluation of whether racism still constrains choice.
• Using postmodern claims of free choice without testing them against class, income or disability.
• Forgetting the core themes: link culture and identity to power and stratification.

Where next

For Paper 2’s partner topics and the rest of the course, see the course structure guide. Links to education help with socialisation and class identity: see the education and differential achievement guide. For subcultures and labelling in another context, see the crime and deviance guide. For evaluating research design, see methods in context. Related Paper 2 topics: Families and Households (primary socialisation), The Media (popular culture and representations) and Stratification and Differentiation (class).

Official syllabus

AQA AS and A-level Sociology (7191, 7192) specification, Version 1.2 (14 October 2021): section 4.2.1 Culture and Identity, assessed in Paper 2: Topics in Sociology, Section A (option 1). Always check the latest version on AQA’s website.