Joined in 2023 
82 
63 About this deal
The Marxist theory of the family developed from the work of Karl Marx (1818-1883). Marx believed society was made up of two important parts, the economic base or infrastructure and the superstructure, which includes the family. By economic base, Marx means the capitalist system of production and the capitalist class structure, whereas by the superstructure, Marx means the other institutions of society, the family, the education system, the mass media, the religious system, the political system and the legal system. He argued that the economic base influences the organisation of the institutions of the superstructure so that they operate to maintain the capitalist system. These tips point you towards the most important part of learning to write good sociological essays: bringing everything you do into the service of producing an argument which responds to the question and provides a satisfying answer. Your introduction should talk about the subject on which you are writing at the broadest level. In an introduction, you make your readers aware of what you are going to argue later in the essay. An introduction can discuss a little about the history of the topic, how it was understood till now, and a framework of what you are going to talk about ahead. You can think of your introduction as an extended form of the abstract. Since it is the first portion of your essay, it should paint a picture where the readers know exactly what’s ahead of them. Every 30 mark question will ask you to refer to an ‘item’. This will be a very short piece of writing, consisting of about 8 lines of text. The item will typically refer to one aspect of the knowledge side of the question and one evaluation point. For example, if the question is asking you to ‘assess the Functionalist view of education’, the item is likely to refer to one point Functionalists make about education – such as role allocation, and one criticism.
Specificity: Your thesis should clearly state your position and the aspects of the topic you will explore. For example, suppose two people meet at a college dance. They are interested in getting to know each other. What would be an on-the-surface understanding and description of their interaction over the next few minutes? What do they say? If they are like a typical couple who just met, they will ask questions like, What’s your name? Where are you from? What dorm do you live in? What’s your major? Now, such a description of their interaction is OK as far as it goes, but what is really going on here? Does either of the two people really care that much about the other person’s answers to these questions? Isn’t each one more concerned about how the other person is responding, both verbally and nonverbally, during this brief interaction? For example, is the other person paying attention and smiling? Isn’t this kind of understanding a more complete analysis of these few minutes of interaction than an understanding based solely on the answers to questions like, What’s your major? For the most complete understanding of this brief encounter, then, we must look beyond the rather superficial things the two people are telling each other to uncover the true meaning of what is going on. To help us understand a blaming-the-victim ideology, let’s consider why poor children in urban areas often learn very little in their schools. A blaming-the-victim approach, according to Ryan, would say that the children’s parents do not care about their learning, fail to teach them good study habits, and do not encourage them to take school seriously. This type of explanation may apply to some parents, in Ryan’s opinion, but it ignores a much more important reason: the sad shape of America’s urban schools, which are decrepit structures housing old textbooks and out-of-date equipment. To improve the schooling of children in urban areas, he wrote, we must improve the schools themselves, and not just try to “improve” the parents. An overview of theory and methods for second year A level sociology – a very brief overview covering the bare-bones of (1) Positivism and Interpretivism, (2) Is sociology a science?, (3) Sociology and value freedom, (4) Functionalism, (5) Marxism, (6) Feminism, (7) Social action theory, (8) Post and late modernism, (9) Sociology and social policy. Positivism and Interpretivism
APA
Gramsci’s Humanist Marxism – Gramsci rejected the economic determinism of Marx and developed the concept of Hegemony to explain the more active role intellectuals might play in revolution – class notes, quite detailed. Whitehead, K., & Kurz, T. (2008). Saints, sinners and standards of femininity: Discursive constructions of anorexia nervosa and obesity in women’s magazines. Journal of Gender Studies, 17, 345–358.
APA (American Psychological Association): Commonly used in the social sciences for both in-text citations and reference lists.
What Is Semantic Scholar?
Functionalists view the family as a nuclear family and assume that the family is a positive beneficial institution in which family members receive unconditional love, nurturing and care. They believe that society is based on consensus, meaning we are all socialised to agree on how to behave, thus reproducing norms and values. Functionalists look at society on a macro scale. They believe that each part of society has a function to make sure that society runs smoothly and everything stays in harmony, for example, education has a function to make sure that people are educated to be good at the job they will get after school. (Haralambos and Holborn, 2008).
Great Deal 
New Comment