Cambridge IGCSE Sociology: Family, Education and Crime — Revision Notes

Condensed for the final weeks. For the full explanation, use the Family, Education and Crime study guide.

The Paper 2 rule

Candidates answer two of the three topics (Family, Education, Crime) — decide early which two you will prepare in depth, but keep working knowledge of the third since Question 1 patterns vary by series.

Family — one mechanism per perspective

Perspective	Mechanism to name
Functionalism	“Warm bath” theory — family stabilises adult emotions
Marxism	Family as unit of consumption
Feminism	Joint vs segregated conjugal roles; domestic division of labour

New Right vs Postmodernist on family diversity — the pairing examiners return to most:

• New Right: diversity = dysfunction; favours the traditional nuclear family.
• Postmodernist: diversity = positive, evidence of individual choice.

Changing family life: connect cause to effect directly — falling birth rates + rising life expectancy → ageing population → emerging roles like the “sandwich generation” and “boomerang children.”

Six named family structures: nuclear, extended, reconstituted, lone parent, empty nest, childless — know how each varies by culture, class and ethnicity before moving to perspectives.

Education — the hidden curriculum first

The hidden curriculum (norms, values, punctuality, conformity taught without being named as lessons) is the single most-returned-to concept in this topic. Have an example ready beyond the textbook’s own (e.g. school uniform policy teaching conformity).

Perspective	Mechanism
Functionalism	Meritocracy and role allocation
Marxism	Reproduction of class inequality via cultural capital; the myth of meritocracy
Feminism	Patriarchal curriculum; gendered subject choice

Explanations of achievement differences — sort by type, since questions often ask you to categorise or compare:

• Material: e.g. access to digital technology.
• Cultural: e.g. cultural capital, linguistic factors.
• In-school: e.g. labelling, pro-/anti-school subcultures.

Crime, deviance and social control

Foundational distinction, always tested: crime breaks the law; deviance breaks social norms. They overlap but are not identical — some deviant behaviour is not criminal, and both are relative across societies, cultures and time.

Two types of control — learn as a paired list:

• Formal: police, courts, armed forces, government, penal system.
• Informal: family, education, workplace, peer group, media, religion.

Seven named crime types (ready vocabulary for classifying exam stimulus material): violent, property, white-collar/corporate, expressive, instrumental, gang, green.

Exam traps

• Confusing the New Right and Postmodernist views on family diversity — one treats diversity as dysfunctional, the other as positive.
• Describing the hidden curriculum only in textbook words, without a concrete school example.
• Treating crime and deviance as synonyms instead of explaining overlap and relativity.
• Answering perspective questions generically (“Marxists think education benefits the rich”) without naming the specific mechanism — cultural capital, the myth of meritocracy — the mark scheme wants.

Build one table, reuse it everywhere

Construct a single three-column table — functionalist / Marxist / feminist — with one specific mechanism per cell, per topic you choose to prepare. This table transfers directly into exam answers across Family, Education, and (where perspectives are examined) Crime, rather than needing three separate revision structures.

Why Paper 1 knowledge is assumed throughout Paper 2

Every Paper 2 topic assumes candidates can already deploy the research methods and theoretical perspectives introduced in Paper 1 without re-explaining them. A strong Family, Education or Crime answer names functionalism, Marxism or feminism and applies its mechanism directly, rather than re-describing what each perspective is from first principles — that groundwork belongs to Paper 1 and re-stating it wastes time that should go toward application. Similarly, if a Paper 2 question draws on research methods (for example, asking how a sociologist might investigate family diversity), the strengths and limitations of methods like structured interviews or official statistics from Paper 1 are assumed knowledge, not something to re-derive.

The internal pattern every Paper 2 topic follows

Family, Education and Crime are taught as three separate topics but are examined through the same underlying pattern: factual content first (what different family types, school types or crime types actually look like), then perspectives (how functionalists, Marxists and feminists interpret that content), then change and explanation (why patterns are shifting, and what explains inequality within them). Recognising this shared structure means that once you have mastered how to answer a perspectives question in Family, the same approach — name the perspective, state its specific mechanism, apply it to the scenario — transfers directly to Education and, where perspectives are examined, to Crime as well.

One more link worth making: education and crime

Some series draw a synoptic connection between Education and Crime — for example, asking whether labelling in school (an in-school explanation from Topic 5) can contribute to later deviant behaviour (Topic 6). Being ready to draw this kind of cross-topic link, rather than treating each of the three Paper 2 topics as entirely sealed off from the others, is worth a small amount of extra preparation time for candidates aiming at the top grades.

Self-test

1. How many of Paper 2’s three topics must a candidate answer?
2. What is functionalism’s specific mechanism for the family’s role?
3. Name the New Right’s view on family diversity.
4. Give one material and one cultural explanation for achievement differences.
5. State the distinction between crime and deviance.

Answers: 1. Two. 2. “Warm bath” theory — stabilising adult emotions. 3. Diversity is a sign of dysfunction; favours the traditional nuclear family. 4. Material: access to digital technology. Cultural: cultural capital or linguistic factors. 5. Crime breaks the law; deviance breaks social norms — they overlap but are not identical, and both are relative across time and place.

Official syllabus

Cambridge IGCSE Sociology (0495) syllabus for 2025, 2026 and 2027 — cambridgeinternational.org.