Taster Sessions

Stranded on a Desert island: Creating your own society

Scenario

The end of the world as we know it has occurred. You are stranded on a desert island with 40 other sole survivors. The 40 survivors are of mixed ages and genders. They include married couples, single adults and children (both with and without their parents). You now have to create your own society! You will do this by making a number of important decisions and creating a number of important rules. Remember they will shape the way you have to live and the lives of the entire population in the new Society.

The questions

Who will do what roles? (childcare, building, education, cooking etc). How will you decide who does what?
Will you allow all types of relationships? (same-sex couples, unmarried couples etc) Will monogamy be the dominant type of relationship or will you also allow polygamy? How many children will couples be allowed to have, will you limit this?
How will you share resources? What type of benefits system, if any, will you have?
How will you deal with rule breakers? Who will decide on the punishments?

Introductory content

Genie The "Wild Child" Video Activity

Instructions:

Watch the video on the case of Genie (up to 3 minutes and 30 seconds). This is designed to get you thinking about the importance of Nature versus Nurture. Sociologists believe that we learn all our behaviours from others in Society (through both primary and secondary socialisation). Others teach us the norms (rules) and values (general beliefs) that allow us to be able to interact and communicate successfully with other members of society.

Make a note of any of the behaviours that Genie did not learn and why this may be the case according to Sociologists. Hint- think about how the case study of Genie can support the view of Sociologists, that nurture is more important than nature.

Using the internet, find a definition of the following key terms: Primary socialisation; Secondary socialisation; Norms and Values. Make a brief note of your answers.

Topic: Education

One of the Key areas we study during the topic of education is educational attainment. As Sociologists it is important for us to ask questions such as, why do Middle-class students outperform Working-class students in the British education system? Why do girls outperform boys across every level of the curriculum? Why do some ethnic minority groups perform below the national average in the British education system? It is important that we consider factors both within the education system (internal factors) and factors outside of the education system (external factors). These may include factors such as poverty, parental attitudes, teacher labelling, racism in the education system, setting and streaming and the impact of Feminism.

Task:

Look at the following pictures below. Describe the educational attainment of the students in the pictures. Make a list of as many external and internal factors that may contribute to the students educational success/failure. Explain how these factors may impact e.g lack of money (poverty) may lead to a lack of educational resources, poor diet and having to share a bedroom with lack a of space to complete homework. Teachers may label some students as successful whilst others may be labelled as failures. Students will then internalise these labels.

STUDENT 1

This student lives in a highly deprived area with their single-parent family. They share a bedroom with two of their older siblings. There home is cramped and damp and is located in a socio-economically deprived area. No one in their family has previously attended university, having left school at 16. The school they attend is in a high crime area with gang activity.

STUDENT 2

This student lives in a large spacious home in an exclusive area of town, both their parents are highly educated having attended university. Both parents are currently working in professional jobs. This student receives help with homework from their parents and has a private tutor for Maths. They are in all top sets at school and have a positive relationship with teachers who see them as the "ideal student".

Topic: Crime and Deviance

Causes of crime and crime prevention/control strategies are key areas of focus for Sociologists and key areas of study for Sociology A-level. We will also spend time studying topics such as gender and crime, ethnicity and crime and human rights violations.

Can you think of any possible causes of crime? Use the pictures below as a clue to get you started, then try and think of some of your own. All of these pictures relate to specific Sociological theories e.g Marxism, sub-cultural theory or Feminism.

Topic: Culture and identity

Culture and Identity Taster Lesson

Culture and Identity is a topic you will study in your first year. You will look at many important areas such as socialisation. This is the process we all go through to learn behaviours in society. There are key agents of socialisation that influence our behaviour, for example, your family, peers, the media, the law, your employer/colleagues in a workplace, religion, etc. You will also look at the term ‘culture’ and what is considered to be ‘normal’ behaviour within a culture. You will explore mainstream cultures and subcultures. You will also study various ways in which we create our own identities. For example, we will study the following in great detail: age, gender, sexuality, ethnicity, social class, disability and nationality.

Have a go at the Culture and Identity activity that is incorporated in this PowerPoint.

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