Alevel Links: Social Inequality

A-Level Links	Inequality

Sociology Corner		John Scott Home Page
A neat little site, run by Ben Austin, that offers an eclectic range of materials. Of most interest to A-level students will be the class and stratification notes, in addition to a range of notes covering race and ethnic relations. These are basically designed to compliment an American undergraduate course, but they contain some useful information that is roughly similar to A-level standard. You will, of course, also find a range of links to other sociology sites around the world.		Co-author (with James Fulcher) of the A-level text "Sociology", John Scott's Home Page is most notable for the links it provides to a range of his writings. Although these are largely aimed at a non-A-Level audience, some of the material on social class and stratification is worth downloading (by teachers as well as students). If you're feeling very brave, there's also an on-line evaluation form, whereby you can send your thoughts and comments about the materials directly to Mr. Scott.

People Like Us		Official Social Classifications in the UK
Although aimed at a GCSE-level audience, this neat site focuses on Social Class in America, using a mixture of text, games and video to get its message across - and the message is that, whatever a skeptical US audience may believe to the contrary, social class is alive, well and causing all kinds of trouble in God's Own Country. The site will not be to everyone's taste, but the child in me thinks it's great...		This article, by David Rose, gives teachers and students a concise overview of the history of social class schemes in the UK, how people are allocated to social classes and a summary of the Economic and Social Research Council review of class schema. The article's a few years old - and its presentation leaves something to be desired - but, what the heck, its the content that counts...

Sociology 101		An Overview of Social Inequality
In basic terms, 50+ PowerPoint slides covering a range of social inequality perspectives (all the usual suspects - Functionalist, Marxism, etc.) and issues (poverty, deviance, income and so forth). If you don't want to use it as a web-based resource you can download the source file for stand-alone use...		Mike Kearl's site, although based around social inequality in the USA, contains a range of useful information and links (to both articles and useful web sites). The emphasis here is on exploration rather than the simple presentation of information (although this is what it all eventually comes down to...), so it's probably a site teachers need to map / explore for themselves before letting their students loose on it to surf with varying degrees of aimlessness...

Theories of Class and Stratification

Oxford Mobility Study

A large resource for all things unequal with the emphasis, as the title suggests, on theory. It's an undergraduate site so it may need to be given the once-over before you direct your students to it. It does, however, contain (amongst other things) sets of "interactive notes" (that's notes with a few hyperlinks to you and me) that might be usefully edited by teachers to bring them down to A2 level.

Admittedly it's not the most exiting topic (or web page come to that), but if you're after information about Goldthorpe's study (and the way we viewed social mobility in the early 1970's) then this is probably as good as it gets...

Social Mobility

Social Stratification

This Economic and Social Research Council site examines aspects of social mobility in the UK through a combination of text, pictures and graphics in a way that's accessible to A-level students. It's generally brief, in terms of what is discussed (areas like definitions, class, gender and ethnicity are covered) but servers as a reasonable introduction to this particular area. The fact the text includes hyperlinks to referenced sites helps to expand the information provided.

This American University site has a couple of useful pieces suitable for A-level students. How Does Social Class Matter? is a micro exercise combining audio material (that also doubles-up as helpful material on research hypothesis development and application) with explanatory text and questions (it needs to be tailored to the particular needs of A-level students) while Class Background is an assignment that requires students to write about their class background.

Part of the SHIELD (Sociologies of Health and Illness ELearning Databank) project charged with producing good quality teaching and learning materials related to the sociology of health and illness, this particular module focuses on social class, using a combination of words, sounds and pictures (you will need the Shockwave Flash player to get the most from the site). The material has interactive elements that help to bring a potentially rather dry subject to life.

General Sociology Links	Inequality

Gender Inn		4000 Years of Women in Science
A neatly-presented site which is, in basic terms, a searchable database of records relating to " feminist theory, literary criticism and gender studies focusing on English and American literature". The site claims some 6000+ records and also contains an extensive annotated list of links to gender and women’s studies sites		Although this site won't win any prizes for presentation (one section has the nastiest use of Frames I've ever seen), its heart is in the right place (and it does provide non-Frames alternatives). Basically, the site provides information about female achievements in an area where their contribution is often ignored; it offers biographies, photographs, references and links for a range of female scientists, some of whom you may know (Curie, Nightingale), but most you won't (which is, after all, the point).

ActionAid		Tax Calc
This charity (or Non Government Organisation) site provides an international dimension to social inequality. In addition to details about the agency's work you'll find a range of media articles, covering various aspects of developmental inequality, presented in a clear and accessible way.		Ever wanted to know how much tax is paid by the UK rich and mega-rich? Yep, me too and now we can find out using this web-based tax calculator. You can also, of course, discover just how much - or how little - tax your teacher pays in comparison...

Centre for Disability Studies		Feminist.com
If you're looking for up-to-date research material on all aspects of disability studies then this is probably one of - if not the - best places to begin. The Resources section of the site contains an archive of research papers / publications mostly, it has to be said, aimed at an undergraduate level audience.		A site that mixes in-house resources with an extensive range of links to all kinds of feminism-related sites. The site itself is fairly basic but, once again, if you've an interest in feminist issues, organisations and resources this is probably a good place to start.