A Level Transition Work - Sociology

TASK 1: What is sociology?

1. In 50-100 words, summarise what you believe Sociology is and involves (without looking it up).
2. Now watch the following video and use the information in it to add to your summary of what
Sociology is and involves. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LK5J0-cM-HE

Questions you might want to consider

 What questions might sociology help you answer?
 What topics might Sociology explore?
 What methods might Sociologist uses to
 What ideas might Sociology explore?
 What might Sociology help us think about?
 How might Sociology involve other subject?

TASK 1 B : Morning Routine

1. .Find the definitions for the following concepts:
socialisation,
primary socialisation,
secondary socialisation,
agents of socialisation,
institutions/agencies of socialisation,
norms,
values
2. Write a list of everything that you do in the order that you do it in, in the first hour after waking up in the
morning.
b. Now consider how your daily routine compares to those of your family and peers. List what you
do the same and what you do differently. What might this tell us about ourselves as individuals?
c. Do your answers for the two last questions suggest that we are born with routines or that we
socialised into it? Do you agree with this view?
Task two : Class- Why rich kids are so good at the marshmallow test
Read the article and answer the questions that follow.
Why Rich Kids Are So Good at the Marshmallow Test
The marshmallow test is one of the most famous pieces of social-science research: Put a marshmallow in
front of a child, tell her that she can have a second one if she can go 15 minutes without eating the first
one, and then leave the room. Whether she’s patient enough to double her pay-out is supposedly
indicative of a willpower that will pay dividends down the line, at school and eventually at work. Passing
the test is, to many, a promising signal of future success.
But a new study, published last week, has cast the whole concept into doubt. The researchers—NYU’s Tyler
Watts and UC Irvine’s Greg Duncan and Hoanan Quan—restaged the classic marshmallow test, which was
developed by the Stanford psychologist Walter Mischel in the 1960s. Mischel and his colleagues
administered the test and then tracked how children went on to fare later in life. They described the
results in a 1990 study, which suggested that delayed gratification had huge benefits, including on such
measures as standardized test scores.
Watts and his colleagues were sceptical of that finding. The original results were based on studies that
included fewer than 90 children—all enrolled in a preschool on Stanford’s campus. In restaging the
experiment, Watts and his colleagues thus adjusted the experimental design in important ways: The
researchers used a sample that was much larger—more than 900 children—and also more representative
of the general population in terms of race, ethnicity, and parents’ education. The researchers also, when
analysing their test’s results, controlled for certain factors—such as the income of a child’s household—
that might explain children’s ability to delay gratification and their long-term success.
Ultimately, the new study finds limited support for the idea that being able to delay gratification leads to
better outcomes. Instead, it suggests that the capacity to hold out for a second marshmallow is shaped in
large part by a child’s social and economic background—and, in turn, that that background, not the ability
to delay gratification, is what’s behind kids’ long-term success.
The marshmallow test isn’t the only experimental study that has recently failed to hold up under closer
scrutiny. Some scholars and journalists have gone so far to suggest that psychology is in the midst of a
“replication crisis.” In the case of this new study, specifically, the failure to confirm old assumptions
pointed to an important truth: that circumstances matter more in shaping children’s lives than Mischel and
his colleagues seemed to appreciate.
This new paper found that among kids whose mothers had a college degree, those who waited for a
second marshmallow did no better in the long run—in terms of standardized test scores and mothers’
reports of their children’s behaviour—than those who dug right in. Similarly, among kids whose mothers
did not have college degrees, those who waited did no better than those who gave in to temptation, once
other factors like household income and the child’s home environment at age 3 (evaluated according to a
standard research measure that notes, for instance, the number of books that researchers observed in the
home and how responsive mothers were to their children in the researchers’ presence) were taken into
account. For those kids, self-control alone couldn’t overcome economic and social disadvantages.

The failed replication of the marshmallow test does more than just debunk the earlier notion; it suggests
other possible explanations for why poorer kids would be less motivated to wait for that second
marshmallow. For them, daily life holds fewer guarantees: There might be food in the pantry today, but
there might not be tomorrow, so there is a risk that comes with waiting. And even if their parents promise
to buy more of a certain food, sometimes that promise gets broken out of financial necessity.
Meanwhile, for kids who come from households headed by parents who are better educated and earn
more money, it’s typically easier to delay gratification: Experience tends to tell them that adults have the
resources and financial stability to keep the pantry well stocked. And even if these children don’t delay
gratification, they can trust that things will all work out in the end—that even if they don’t get the second
marshmallow, they can probably count on their parents to take them out for ice cream instead.
There’s plenty of other research that sheds further light on the class dimension of the marshmallow test.
The Harvard economist Sendhil Mullainathan and the Princeton behavioural scientist Eldar Shafir wrote a
book in 2013, Scarcity: Why Having Too Little Means So Much, that detailed how poverty can lead people
to opt for short-term rather than long-term rewards; the state of not having enough can change the way
people think about what’s available now. In other words, a second marshmallow seems irrelevant when a
child has reason to believe that the first one might vanish.
Some more-qualitative sociological research also can provide insight here. For example, Ranita Ray, a
sociologist at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, recently wrote a book describing how many teenagers
growing up in poverty work long hours in poorly paid jobs to support themselves and their families. Yet,
despite sometimes not being able to afford food, the teens still splurge on payday, buying things like
McDonald’s or new clothes or hair dye. Similarly, in my own research with Brea Perry, a sociologist (and
colleague of mine) at Indiana University, we found that low-income parents are more likely than more-
affluent parents to give in to their kids’ requests for sweet treats.
These findings point to the idea that poorer parents try to indulge their kids when they can, while more-
affluent parents tend to make their kids wait for bigger rewards. Hair dye and sweet treats might seem
frivolous, but purchases like these are often the only indulgences poor families can afford. And for poor
children, indulging in a small bit of joy today can make life feel more bearable, especially when there’s no
guarantee of more joy tomorrow.

Questions
a. Define immediate gratification and delayed gratification.
b. What does this research suggest about attitudes to delayed gratification amongst
different social classes?
c. How might this be linked to family structure?
Task three : The stark relationship between income inequality and crime
Read the article and answer the questions that follow.

FIFTY years ago Gary Becker, a Nobel prize-winning economist, advanced an argument that all crime is
economic and all criminals are rational. Becker’s seminal paper, “Crime and Punishment: An Economic
Approach” posited that would-be criminals make a cost-benefit assessment of the likely rewards from
breaking the law against the probability of being caught and punished. In Becker’s world of utility-
maximising miscreants, places that have larger gaps between the poor (the would-be criminals) and the
rich (the victims) will, all other things being equal, have higher crime.
A new survey by Gallup, a polling organisation, appears to go some way to verifying Becker’s theory. It
asked 148,000 people in 142 countries about their perceptions of crime and how safe they feel across four
measures: whether they trust the local police; whether they feel safe walking home alone; if they have had
property or money stolen; and whether they have been assaulted over the past year. Testing the
correlation between these questions and the amount of income inequality (as measured by the Gini
coefficient) in any given country shows a strong and positive relationship (see chart above).
Whether people feel safe walking home alone or not shows the strongest relationship with inequality. In
Venezuela, for example, four-fifths of respondents said they do not feel safe walking home alone—
kidnappings and extortion are a common occurrence in the country. Its income distribution is the 19th-
most unequal in the study. In contrast, fully 95% of people in Norway said they feel safe walking home
alone. Sure enough, it is 12th most equal country of the 142.
These simple relationships do not account for all of the differences in people’s perceptions of crime levels.
Others have since expanded upon Becker’s theory to take into account how much the rich show off their
wealth. In a study published in 2014, Daniel Hicks at the University of Oklahoma and Joan Hamory Hicks at
the University of California in Berkeley demonstrated that over a 20-year period, the American states that
had the greatest inequality in visible expenditure—spending on items such as clothing, jewellery, cars, and
eating out—also suffered the most from violent crime. So if you’ve got it, don’t flaunt it—especially if your
neighbours don’t have it as well.

Questions: According this article:

a. What is the relationship between the class inequality and levels of crime?
b. How might class inequality influence people’s perception of crime?
Task four Age: NHS faces staggering increase in cost of elderly care, academics warn.
Read the article and answer the questions that follow.

NHS faces staggering increase in cost of elderly care, academics warn

2.8 million people over 65 will need nursing and social care by 2025 – largely because of a significant rise in
dementia-related disability, research finds
The number of people with an age-related disability is set to rise by 25% by 2025, the research indicates,
meaning that expenditure on long-term care will need to increase considerably.
The number of people with an age-related disability is set to rise by 25% by 2025, the research indicates,
meaning that expenditure on long-term care will need to increase considerably.
The NHS and social care system in the UK is facing a staggering increase in the cost of looking after elderly
people within the next few years, according to major new research which shows a 25% increase in those
who will need care between 2015 and 2025.
Within eight years, there will be 2.8 million people over 65 needing nursing and social care, unable to cope
alone, says the research – largely because of the toll of dementia in a growing elderly population. The
research, , says cases of disability related to dementia will rise by 40% among people aged 65 to 84, with
other forms of disability increasing by about 31%.
The new figures follow a furore over the Conservative manifesto and this week. In a bid to keep the costs
of care down, the manifesto said those needing care at home would have to pay until they had £100,000 in
savings left, including the cost of their home.
After accusations that the Conservatives were imposing a “dementia tax”, May promised a cap on the
amount any person would pay for care – although without specifying what the cap would be.
The new analysis will make grim reading for whichever party gains power. “The societal, economic and
public health implications of our forecast are substantial,” say the researchers, led by academics from the
University of Liverpool and University College London.
“Public and private expenditure on long-term care will need to increase considerably by 2025, in view of
the predicted 25% rise in the number of people who will have age-related disability. This situation has
serious implications for a cash-strapped and overburdened National Health Service and an under-
resourced social care system,” they added.
The figures take account for the first time of the changing disease burden as well as the increasing elderly
population and longer life expectancy. Cardiovascular disease, which can cause heart attacks and strokes,
has gone down, but dementia is rising as people live longer. This makes the research an advance on
previous studies, says Professor Stuart Gilmour of the department of global health policy at the University
of Tokyo in a commentary published alongside the paper.
“The results show starkly the growing burden of disability that the UK National Health Service and social
care system will face over the next decade,” he writes.

“[It] faces a rapid increase in the number of elderly people with disabilities … at a time when it is uniquely
unprepared for even the existing burden of disability in the UK population. This important research should
be taken as a warning and a strong call for action on health service planning and funding, workforce
training and retention, and preparation for the ageing of British society.”
The government urgently needs to consider the options, says the paper. Firstly, more care homes are
needed, it says. Secondly, there must be more support for informal and home care – they suggest tax
allowances or cash benefits. “Affected individuals and their families pay an estimated 40% of the national
cost of long-term care from income and savings,” they write.
But prevention is also vital. Poor diet, smoking, drinking heavily, high blood pressure, diabetes and little
physical activity are risk factors for both heart disease and dementia, they say. Immediate investment in
improving people’s lifestyles would pay dividends, they say. “We seriously need to protect the future of
older citizens through prevention,” said lead author Dr Maria Guzman-Castillo of the University of
Liverpool.
She said political parties had not so far been looking at the true scale of the crisis to come. “We think they
are not looking at this. There is a gap between the academic community and the government,” she said.
Professor Helen Stokes-Lampard, chair of the Royal College of GPs, said more investment in the NHS and
social care was desperately needed. “It’s a great testament to medical research, and the NHS, that we are
living longer – but we need to ensure that our patients are living longer with a good quality of life. For this
to happen we need a properly funded, properly staffed health and social care sector with general practice,
hospitals and social care all working together – and all communicating well with each other, in the best
interests of delivering safe care to all our patients.”
Margaret Willcox, president of the Association of Directors of Adult Social Services (ADASS), said: “As most
people expect to need some form of care in their lifetime, there is an urgent need for the whole country to
consider how best to ensure people with care needs are funded and how their care is delivered.
“The need to future-proof adult social care should be a national priority for the new government. Unless a
long-term sustainable solution is established to tackle significant sector pressures, a rising number of
elderly and disabled people living longer and with increasingly complex needs, along with their families,
will struggle to receive the personal, dignified care they depend on and deserve.”

Questions:
a. What impact is an ageing population having on public services?
b. Is there anything that can be done to change this?
2. Women continue to carry the load when it comes to unpaid work
Read the article and answer the questions that follow.

It is good that men have increased their workload since Covid, but the reality remains that women have
increased theirs by more

‘The common response by those who get irked by such facts is that men do more paid employment so it all
evens out. Unfortunately that argument does not stack up.’ Photograph:
In news that will shock no women around the nation, the latest survey shows women do much more
unpaid work than men. At least the survey shows that in the past year more men doing more unpaid work
than they were last year. The problem is so too are women.
The past year saw many of us in our homes a lot more than normal. And while that has involved many of
working from home, it has also involved more unpaid work at home.
When for example young children are at home rather than at school, someone needs to be there
supervising them. The latest survey by the Bureau of Statistics on the household impacts of Covid-
19 sought to discover who was doing most of this unpaid work.
It is of course, women:

Nearl
y 45% of all women with children spend more than five hours each week supervising or caring for them –
more than a third spend over 20 hours.
By contrast just 32% of men spend more than five hours a week and a mere 17% do more than 20 hours
watching over or caring for their children.
This is, of course, no shock. It confirms all household surveys done over the years, but it is worth
highlighting because while it might be unsurprising it doesn’t mean it should be a given.
And the reality is that even when we exclude childcare and focus on other unpaid work around the house,
women are the ones carrying the bulk of the load:

Ov
er a quarter of women spend more than 10 hours a week doing unpaid indoor housework compared to just
8% of men. When we shift outdoors, 7% of men spend more than 10 hours a week on outdoor housework
and repairs, barely above the 6% of women who spend that amount of time doing the same unpaid work.
When we break down who spends more than five hours a week doing various tasks, once again women are
the heavy lifters, and men are the leaners.
Over half of women spend more than five hours a week doing indoor housework, compared to just 28% of
men, and women continue to be the ones who will most likely be cooking dinners – 54% of women spend
more than five hours a week doing so, compared to 30% of men:

A
quarter of men spend more than five hours a week caring or supervising children – roughly the same level
who spend such time on outdoor housework and repairs. But the reality is the level of work done by men
outdoors does not balance the work done by women indoors.
At this point the common response by those who get irked by such facts is that men do more paid
employment so it all evens out.
Unfortunately that argument does not stack up.
In 2019 the Melbourne Institute’s Household, Income and Labour Dynamics in Australia survey found that
even when taking into account the amount of paid employment, women did more work.
When men were the main breadwinner of a household the amount of work both paid and unpaid was
roughly the same by both the men and women, but in all other cases – even when women were the main
breadwinner – women did more overall work:

But
clearly the Covid-19 pandemic has seen an increase in the amount of work being done, and men have
definitely lifted their unpaid workload.
Across all activities more men say they are doing more work now than are year ago compared to the
amount of men who say they are doing less:
 T
en percent of men say they are doing more indoor housework than last year compared to 5% who say they
are doing less.
And yet women are also doing more work than last year.
Nearly 20% of women say they now do more indoor housework compared to last year, while 6% say they
do less:

Somew
hat oddly given the astonishing increase in grocery shopping done in the past year, the only category that
more women say they are doing less work is on such shopping.
And while it is good that men have increased their workload, the reality remains that women have
increased theirs by more.
In all categories except grocery shopping more women have increased their level of work compared to
men:
 Bef
ore the pandemic women did more unpaid work than men and during the pandemic men increased the
amount of unpaid work they did. But so too did women, and so we see women continue to be the ones
carrying the load when it comes to work that doesn’t get paid.

Questions:
a. Summarise the main trends/ statistics presented in the article.
b. What factors do you think might contributed to these trends/ statistics?