Sociology

Course summary

In year 12, students study three main topics: - Education (achievement by social class; achievement by race and ethnicity; achievement by gender; functionalist, Marxist and New Right views on education; government policies on education). - Families and Households (couples; childhood; functionalist, Marxist and feminist views on the family; demography; changing family patterns; New Right and postmodernist views on family diversity; government policies on the family). - Research Methods (positivism, interpretivism, sampling techniques, triangulation, experiments, questionnaires, interviews, observation, official statistics, documents, content analysis, life histories, case studies and longitudinal studies). To be successful in the year 12 course, you will need to be prepared to read extensively and be able to write about a range of challenging topics and issues in depth. In year 13, students study three main topics: - Beliefs in Society (functionalist, Marxist, feminist and postmodernist views on religion; religion and social change; secularisation debates; religious organisations; religious participation by age, social class, gender and ethnicity; religion and globalisation; religious fundamentalism; religion, science and ideology as belief systems). - Crime and Deviance (functionalist, subcultural, Marxist, realist and postmodern views on crime; crime and gender; crime and ethnicity; crime and the media; green crime; state crime; crime prevention strategies; punishment; victimology). - Theory and Methods (primary methods; secondary methods; positivism and interpretivism; functionalism; Marxism; feminism; symbolic interactionism; phenomenology; ethnomethodology; postmodernism; objectivity and values in sociology; sociology and social policy). To be successful in the year 13 course, you will need to be prepared to read extensively and be able to write about a range of complex topics and issues in depth.