The sociology of families and households (and the sociology of personal life) is an optional component of both the AQA and OCR A level specifications. It is a compulsory component of most GCSE Sociology specifications as well and on this page I have uploaded some of the resources for teaching this part of the specification. The resources are designed specifically to allow students to demonstrate their knowledge, application, analysis and evaluations skills, and can be applied to different exam boards.
Theoretical perspectives on family and personal life
Changing nature of family life and family diversity
Gender roles and relationships
Below are some simple activities that look at the different roles performed in the family and how these have changed with the growth of family diversity and the privatisation of the nuclear family. View images of the worksheets/activities in the gallery, then simply download and use them as you wish.
Childhood
Marriage and Divorce
Demographic changes
Research Methods and Family
Being able to conduct research into sociological issues is a key employability skill for students of sociology. Not only will they be asked to conduct research if they were to go onto study at university, but research is increasingly a part of many different professions, so giving students opportunities to conduct small scale research helps embed key skills that they will need for the future. In this section, we have added some templates and ideas of how to conduct research for students.
Household Division of Labour survey
A simple 10 question survey that includes both closed and open questions for students to ask parents, grandparents, other family members and friends. Can collect as much or as little data as possible, perhaps even combining their research with other in class – it is anonymous so should not cause any issues with confidentiality.
Timelines of Social Changes
The family has changed significantly in both it’s organisation and structure over the last century. A useful way of demonstrating those changes is through creating timelines of social changes. Below are some templates for mapping out these social changes, as well as completed timelines and video timelines.
Summaries of sociological approaches to family life
Below are some summaries – both blank and completed of key ideas for students studying the different theories of families and households. Whilst not as expansive as other knowledge organiser style handouts, they are useful to get students to recall knowledge (blank ones) or as headers that give a brief overview of what students have studied (or even will study) and consolidates information into one page.
Teaching PowerPoints and Handouts
I don’t usually subscribe to lengthy PowerPoints and prefer students to be doing things, rather than being passive recipients of information – However, sometimes, it is just necessary to go through some of the more complex topics in class and so there are a range of Ppts below, each with accompanying notes and questions to check your students’ learning.
