An Interactive Cambridge OCR A Level Sociology Activity

Social class inequality can be difficult to understand because it appears in many different areas of life. It is not simply about whether someone has a high or low income. Social class can affect wealth, housing, education, employment security, health, food access and opportunities for social mobility.

The Class Inequality Evidence Explorer is an interactive activity designed for Cambridge OCR A Level Sociology students studying patterns and trends in social inequality. It helps students move beyond simply memorising studies by asking them to interpret evidence and decide what type of inequality is being shown.

Students work through a series of evidence cards. Each card presents a short statistic, fictional scenario, research summary or example of contemporary inequality. They then identify three things:

• the type of social class inequality shown;
• the life chance most likely to be affected;
• the OCR suggested study that best links to the evidence.

This makes the activity useful for students who need to distinguish between closely related concepts. For example, students often confuse income inequality with wealth inequality, or assume that having a job automatically protects someone from poverty. The activity encourages them to see that low-paid or insecure work can affect housing, health, family life and the opportunities available to children.

The activity is built around five OCR-friendly studies. Rowlingson and Mullineux are used to explore income and wealth inequality. Atkinson is linked to inherited wealth, including the advantage that can come from family support with housing deposits, university costs or periods of unemployment. Roberts is used to examine social mobility and the greater employment security often available to middle-class households. Gallie is applied to economic restructuring, deskilling and insecure employment. Finally, Wakeman is used to explore food banks, food insecurity and the effects of poverty on health and wellbeing.

The contemporary evidence cards make the activity more relevant to students’ understanding of inequality in Britain today. The Joseph Rowntree Foundation’s work on poverty is particularly useful because it shows that employment does not always prevent hardship. Students are encouraged to consider the importance of pay, hours, contract type and job security rather than treating employment as a simple divide between those who work and those who do not. The Sutton Trust’s Opportunity Index also helps students explore why opportunities for education, work and social mobility vary between different places.

Students receive a score out of 20. Their feedback is linked to their understanding of class inequality:

• 0–7: Revisit the difference between income, wealth, occupation and employment security.
• 8–14: You can identify some class inequalities, but need to explain their effects on life chances more clearly.
• 15–20: You can accurately identify patterns of class inequality and apply evidence to sociological studies.

The final section develops exam skills. Students are given a randomly generated exam-style question and select two evidence cards to build a paragraph plan. This asks them to turn a short piece of evidence into a developed sociological explanation using a point, study, contemporary evidence and life-chance consequence.

This is particularly useful preparation for OCR questions on social inequality because stronger answers do more than describe a statistic. They explain why the pattern matters. For example, a student might use Gallie to explain how economic restructuring can lead to insecure work, then develop this into an explanation of lower incomes, reduced housing security, stress and fewer opportunities for the next generation.

Teachers can use the activity as an independent starter, a whole-class retrieval task, a revision activity or a bridge into extended writing. The evidence cards are deliberately easy to update. New figures or examples from the Joseph Rowntree Foundation, Sutton Trust, Office for National Statistics, Equality Trust or Trussell can be substituted into the code without changing the structure of the activity.

Suggested follow-up task

After completing the activity, students should answer:

Outline ways in which social class may affect life chances.

They should use at least one OCR suggested study and one contemporary example in each paragraph.

Useful sources for updates

• Joseph Rowntree Foundation: UK Poverty 2026 and work and poverty statistics
• Sutton Trust: The Opportunity Index
• Office for National Statistics: income, wealth, housing and healthy-life-expectancy data
• Equality Trust: wealth and income inequality summaries
• Trussell: food-bank use and food insecurity reports
• Shelter: housing and social-housing evidence