GCSE Sociology

Exam Board: AQA

Sociology is the study of society and of people and their behaviour. Sociology helps you gain knowledge and understanding of key social structures, processes and issues. If you often ask questions about the world that you live in and why things are the way they are, then sociology is for you.

There are four key topic areas:

Families – this will include learning about the different roles within a family, the function of the family, different family types and how they have changed over time.

Education – this will include the role of education and factors that affect educational achievement e.g. gender and social class

Crime and deviance – this will include assessing the usefulness of official crime statistics, explanations of crime and methods of social control

Social stratification – this will include learning about different factors affecting life chances, poverty and power

Sociological research methods are integrated across all topic areas. It includes studying different research methods such as questionnaires and interviews, different types of data and ethical issues. Sociological theory is also integrated throughout the topics e.g. studying the feminist view of the roles in the family.

Assessment

100% examination. There are two exams both are 1 hour 45 minutes. Each paper is 50% of your final grade.

Where can it lead?

Possible career paths include: sociologist, therapist, teacher, social worker, lawyer, police officer, government official, journalist, psychologist, probation worker, market research and many more.

You will gain many transferable skills such as communication, understanding, research, teamwork, independence, literacy, interpersonal, problem solving and analysis. 

Find out where studies in Sociology can take you on Unifrog:

Sociology Subject Profile.