O Level Sociology: Research Methods, Identity and Inequality — Revision Notes

Condensed for the final weeks. For the full explanation, use the Research Methods, Identity and Inequality study guide.

Research methods

Primary data is collected by the researcher; secondary already exists. Quantitative is numerical; qualitative is descriptive.

Concept	Meaning
Reliability	Repeating the study gives the same result
Validity	It gives a true picture
Representativeness	The sample reflects the wider population

Quantitative methods are strong on reliability and weak on validity; qualitative methods are the reverse. That single trade-off answers most methods questions.

Method	Strengths	Weaknesses
Questionnaire	Cheap, large samples, reliable, easily analysed	Low response rate, low validity, no chance to explain
Structured interview	Reliable, comparable, better response rate	Interviewer bias, limited depth
Unstructured interview	Valid, detailed, flexible	Time-consuming, unreliable, small sample
Participant observation	Very valid, reveals real behaviour	Hawthorne effect, going native, ethically difficult
Official statistics	Cheap, large-scale, comparable	Socially constructed by the state

Sampling: random, systematic, stratified, quota, snowball (for hidden groups), opportunity. The sampling frame is the list drawn from; its absence often forces a non-random method.

Pilot study — a small-scale trial run to find problems with wording, timing or procedure before the main study.

Ethics: informed consent, confidentiality, protection from harm, no deception, right to withdraw.

Culture, socialisation and identity

• Culture — the whole way of life of a group: norms, values, roles, beliefs.
• Norms are expected behaviours; values are beliefs about what matters.
• Primary socialisation — family, early childhood. Secondary socialisation — school, peer group, media, religion, workplace.
• Sanctions — positive or negative, formal or informal.
• Ascribed status is fixed at birth; achieved status is earned.

Nature versus nurture: the sociological evidence is cross-cultural variation in norms and gender roles, and feral children cases where individuals raised without human contact fail to develop language or normal social behaviour.

Subculture — a group with distinct norms within a wider society. Counter-culture — one actively opposed to the mainstream.

Inequality

Social class:

• Life chances — opportunities for health, education, housing and income. Class, gender, ethnicity and age all shape life chances and interact with each other, so a strong answer explains how they interact rather than ranking one factor as the single strongest predictor.
• Social mobility — intergenerational compares a person with their parents; intragenerational compares stages of one person’s own career.
• Open societies allow movement by merit; closed societies, such as caste systems, fix status at birth.
• Absolute poverty is lacking the necessities for survival; relative poverty is falling below the standard considered acceptable in that society — which is why relative poverty exists in wealthy countries.
• Cycle of deprivation — poor housing and diet → poor health and education → low-paid work → poverty in the next generation.

Explaining class inequality — four perspectives: Functionalists (Davis and Moore) see inequality as functional and inevitable — the most important roles require the greatest talent and longest training, so higher rewards act as an incentive, and society is broadly a meritocracy. Marxists locate inequality in the ownership of the means of production: the bourgeoisie exploit the proletariat by extracting surplus value from their labour, and ideology transmitted through education, religion and the media produces false consciousness, so the working class accept a system that disadvantages them. Weberians argue class position depends not only on property but on market situation — the skills and qualifications a person brings to the labour market — and added status and party as separate dimensions, making inequality multi-dimensional rather than a simple two-class model. Feminists argue inequality is structured by patriarchy as well as class, with women concentrated in low-paid, part-time work and carrying a dual burden of paid and domestic labour.

Gender: the glass ceiling blocks women’s promotion; horizontal segregation concentrates them in particular occupations and vertical segregation at lower levels. Causes: gender socialisation, domestic and caring responsibilities, discrimination, interrupted careers. Changes: equal-pay laws, girls’ educational success, changing attitudes.

Ethnicity: discrimination in employment and housing, institutional racism, negative media representation. Ethnic disadvantage overlaps heavily with class disadvantage — the two interact, and sociologists debate how much of the apparent ethnic effect is attributable to class rather than ethnicity itself. Raising that interaction, rather than treating the two as independent, is worth making.

Age: the young and the old both face distinct disadvantages — youth unemployment and low pay at one end, ageism and pension poverty at the other.

Exam traps

• Confusing reliability with validity.
• Confusing absolute with relative poverty.
• Confusing ascribed with achieved status.
• Confusing intergenerational with intragenerational mobility.
• Evaluating a method in the abstract rather than for the specific topic.
• Giving only one side when evaluation requires both plus a judgement.

Self-test

1. Distinguish reliability from validity, and say which methods favour each.
2. What is a sampling frame, and why does its absence matter?
3. Distinguish absolute from relative poverty.
4. Explain the cycle of deprivation.
5. Why is it difficult to separate ethnic from class disadvantage?

Answers: 1. Reliability is getting the same result on repetition — favoured by quantitative methods; validity is giving a true picture — favoured by qualitative methods. 2. The list of the population from which a sample is drawn; without one, random or systematic sampling is impossible, so a non-random method such as snowball or opportunity sampling must be used. 3. Absolute poverty is lacking the basic necessities for survival; relative poverty is falling below the standard of living considered acceptable in that particular society. 4. Poor housing and diet cause poor health and educational underachievement, leading to low-paid insecure work, which reproduces the same conditions for the next generation. 5. Because ethnicity and class interact rather than acting independently — ethnic minority groups are disproportionately represented in lower socio-economic positions, so an observed disadvantage may reflect class, ethnicity, or both, and sociologists debate how to separate the two.