Key term
OCR A-Level Sociology H580
Introducing Socialisation, Culture and Identity
Topic overviewCulture, norms, values and cultural relativismSubculture, high culture and popular cultureGlobal and consumer culture, cultural diversity and hybridityPrimary and secondary socialisation, the family and peer groupMedia, religion, education and the workplace as agencies of socialisationLifelong socialisation and the nature/nurture debateSocial control, sanctions and formal agencies of controlInformal agencies and theories of social controlThe concept of identity, ethnicity and nationalityGender, class and sexual identityAge, disability, hybrid and intersecting identities
Families and RelationshipsComponent 01
Topic overviewFamily types and trends in marriage, divorce and cohabitationDemographic change, family diversity and newer family typesNuclear family ideology, functionalism and the New RightMarxist, feminist and postmodern views and the diversity debateConjugal roles and the domestic division of labourPower, the dark side of the family and theories of partner rolesThe child-centred family, views of childhood and its extensionParent-child power, grandparents in an ageing population and feminist views
Youth SubculturesComponent 01
Topic overviewFunctionalist and neo-Marxist views of youth cultureHebdige, feminist and postmodern views of youth subculturesClass, ethnic and hybrid subcultures and consensus versus conflictDelinquent, criminal, spectacular and anti-school subculturesGangs, newer deviant subcultures and patterns in youth offendingFunctionalist, New Right and Marxist explanations of youth devianceLabelling, identity, gender, ethnicity and moral panics in youth deviance
MediaComponent 01
Topic overviewRepresentations of ethnicity and nationality, symbolic annihilation and the male gazeRepresentations of gender, social class and young peopleRepresentations of older people and theories of media representationDirect and indirect media effects modelsActive audience models, deviance amplification and moral panics
Research Methods and Researching Social Inequalities
Topic overviewPositivism, quantitative data and interpretivismVerstehen, qualitative data and validityReliability, representativeness, generalisability and theoryResearch topics, aims, hypotheses and primary and secondary dataOperationalisation, pilot studies and respondent validationLongitudinal studies, interpreting data and social policySampling frames, sampling techniques and choosing a sampleAccess, gatekeepers and research ethicsQuestionnaires, structured interviews, statistics, content analysis and observationUnstructured interviews, ethnography and methodological pluralism
Understanding Social Inequalities
Globalisation and the Digital Social World
Crime and DevianceComponent 03
Topic overviewDefining crime and deviance, social control and relativitySocial construction of crime and police recorded crimeThe Crime Survey, victim surveys and self-report studiesCrime patterns by social class, gender and ageCrime patterns by ethnicity, crime trends and global organised crimeGlocal organised crime and green crimeFunctionalist, strain and subcultural theories of crimeMarxist, interactionist and left realist theories of crimeRight realism, New Right, feminism and explaining ethnic and age patternsLeft-wing crime reduction, social crime prevention and restorative justiceSituational crime prevention, zero tolerance and punitive justice
EducationComponent 03
Topic overviewFunctionalist, Marxist and liberal views of the role of educationSocial democratic, New Right and feminist views and vocational educationClass and ethnic patterns in educational attainmentGender patterns, global educational inequality and intersectionalityInside-school factors: labelling, setting, triage and institutional racismMaterial and cultural deprivation and cultural capitalExplaining gender and ethnic differences and theoretical views of achievementTypes of school and education policy since 1988Ideology, marketisation and equality of opportunity in education policy
Religion, Belief and FaithComponent 03
Topic overviewDefining religion, faith and belief, churches and denominationsSects, cults, new religious and new age movements and fundamentalismMeasuring religiosity and believing without belongingFunctionalist and Marxist views of the role of religionNeo-Marxist, Weberian, feminist, phenomenological and postmodern views of religionReligion, social change and whether religion is positive or negativeClass and gender patterns in religiosityWomen's changing religiosity and ethnic and age patternsAge cohorts, global religious trends and resurgenceDefining secularisation and evidence of religious declinePro- and anti-secularisation theoriesReligion and social policy, the golden age critique and global patterns
Families and Relationships
- 8 subtopics
- 24 things to know
- Component 01
- Component 01 Section B option, one of three
What Families and Relationships covers
Families and Relationships is examined on component 01 of OCR Sociology, Socialisation, culture and identity. It is one of the three Section B options on that paper, of which a student sits one. 112 recall questions across 8 subtopics.
Where it is assessed
Component 01
Socialisation, culture and identity, Section B option of three.
Check the OCR specification ↗The 8 subtopics
Each one has its own page.
- Family types and trends in marriage, divorce and cohabitationRecall questions on the difference between a family and a household, nuclear, extended, lone parent, reconstituted and same-sex families and non-family households, and the trends in and reasons for marriage, divorce and cohabitation, including legal change and Fletcher's optimistic view of rising divorce.Open →
- Demographic change, family diversity and newer family typesRecall questions on demographic change in the birth rate, family size, age at first marriage, age of childbearing and the ageing population, how class and ethnicity shape family diversity with Ballard, Weeks's families of choice, living apart together, beanpole and boomerang families, and the reasons for growing family diversity.Open →
- Nuclear family ideology, functionalism and the New RightRecall questions on the ideology of the nuclear family and Leach's cereal packet image, functionalist views of the family from Murdock and Parsons, including the warm bath, functional fit and loss of functions, the New Right view and Murray on welfare, and criticisms of both positions.Open →
- Marxist, feminist and postmodern views and the diversity debateRecall questions on Marxist views of the family from Engels and Zaretsky, liberal, Marxist, radical and difference feminism, postmodern views of diversity with Stacey and Giddens's pure relationship, Chester's neo-conventional family, the Rapoports' five types of diversity, consensus and conflict views, and the family as social control.Open →
- Conjugal roles and the domestic division of labourRecall questions on conjugal roles and Bott's segregated and joint roles, Parsons's instrumental and expressive roles, the domestic division of labour, Young and Willmott's symmetrical family and stratified diffusion, Oakley's challenge, the dual burden and triple shift, Gershuny's lagged adaptation, material and cultural explanations, and the commercialisation of housework.Open →
- Power, the dark side of the family and theories of partner rolesRecall questions on power between partners, including Edgell on decision-making and the allowance and pooling systems, the dark side of the family, coercive control, Dobash and Dobash and Marxist accounts of domestic violence, Leach and Laing and Cooper, and functionalist, Marxist and feminist approaches to roles between partners.Open →
- The child-centred family, views of childhood and its extensionRecall questions on the child-centred family and the reasons for its growth, Aries on the social construction of childhood, the march of progress view, Palmer's toxic childhood, child liberationists such as Firestone and Holt, the extension of childhood through law, policy and the labour market, and Postman's disappearance of childhood.Open →
- Parent-child power, grandparents in an ageing population and feminist viewsRecall questions on power between parents and children, including Gittins's age patriarchy and Hockey and James on resisting adult control, how the ageing population changes grandparents' roles, beanpole families and the sandwich generation, and feminist views of caring, grandparenting, parenting, Oakley's gender socialisation and family policy.Open →
What you need to know
Answer each one before you reveal it.
Your recallNot started
Key term
Describe the broad trend in divorce in the UK across recent decades.
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Explain how legal change contributed to the rise in divorce.
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How does social class shape family diversity?
Evaluation
What is Jonathan Gershuny's 'lagged adaptation' argument?
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Why is domestic abuse likely to be under-recorded?
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Give one reason for doubting that children now have real power in the family.
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How do feminists explain the division of parenting between mothers and fathers?
Who and when
What did Oakley identify as the ways parents socialise children into gender roles?
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Why has average family size fallen?
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What is the 'cereal packet' image of the family, and who is credited with the phrase?
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Name the four functions George Peter Murdock claimed the family performs.
Who and when
What did Friedrich Engels argue about the origins of the monogamous nuclear family?
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What is the postmodernist view of family diversity?
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Define the term conjugal roles.
Who and when
What did Edmund Leach argue about the emotional demands of the nuclear family?
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Give three reasons for the growth of the child-centred family.
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Give three legal or policy developments that helped extend childhood.
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Why has the average age at first marriage risen?
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State the two 'irreducible functions' Talcott Parsons attributed to the family.
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What is Anthony Giddens' concept of the 'pure relationship'?
Who and when
What did Parsons mean by instrumental and expressive roles?
Who and when
What did Laing and Cooper claim about the family?
Key term
How does the labour market contribute to the extension of childhood into the twenties?
Take Families and Relationships further
The same content, four other ways.
Questions from this topic
Each one with the model answer underneath.
- 1
What is the difference between a family and a household?
Model answer
A family is a group connected by blood, marriage or civil partnership, or adoption, whereas a household is simply one person or a group of people living at the same address and sharing facilities.
- 2
Define the nuclear family.
Model answer
A nuclear family is two generations living together in one household: a couple and their dependent children.
- 3
What is an extended family, and what is the difference between its vertical and horizontal forms?
Model answer
An extended family is a nuclear family plus other relatives; the vertical form adds extra generations such as grandparents, while the horizontal form adds relatives of the same generation such as aunts, uncles and cousins.
- 4
Define a lone parent family.
Model answer
A lone parent family is one parent living with their dependent children, and the great majority of such families in the UK are headed by the mother.
- 5
What is a reconstituted family?
Model answer
A reconstituted or step family is formed when partners bring children from a previous relationship into a new household, so at least one adult is a step parent.
- 6
What is meant by a same-sex family?
Model answer
It is a family in which the couple are of the same sex, raising children through adoption, fostering, assisted conception or a previous heterosexual relationship.
What is inside Levo
Six ways to work the same material.
Families and Relationships revision questions
- What does Families and Relationships cover in OCR A-Level Sociology?
- 8 subtopics: family types and trends in marriage, divorce and cohabitation, demographic change, family diversity and newer family types, nuclear family ideology, functionalism and the new right, marxist, feminist and postmodern views and the diversity debate, conjugal roles and the domestic division of labour, power, the dark side of the family and theories of partner roles, the child-centred family, views of childhood and its extension and parent-child power, grandparents in an ageing population and feminist views. Each one has its own page with questions and model answers.
- How is Families and Relationships organised?
- By the OCR H580 specification, subtopic by subtopic, so it matches the order you are taught it in.
Every question in Families and Relationships, on a schedule.
Attempt a question from memory, write the correct version, then attempt it again. Levo records the jump between your first attempt and your last, and brings each question back on the day you are due to forget it.
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