AQA A-Level Sociology: Culture and Identity
6 exam-style questions with full mark schemes and model answers. Write your own answer and the AI examiner marks it against the mark scheme.
Read Item A below and answer the question that follows.
Item A — written for this exercise
Recent research into how young adults describe themselves suggests that the brands they buy, the music they stream and the styles they wear now figure more prominently in their accounts of who they are than the job they do or the class they were born into. When asked, in an invented survey of 1,000 people aged 18 to 30, which factors mattered most to their sense of identity, respondents answered as follows:
| Factor said to matter "a lot" to identity | Share of respondents (%) |
|---|---|
| The brands, styles and products I choose | 61 |
| The music, media and leisure I consume | 58 |
| My ethnic or cultural background | 44 |
| My gender | 41 |
| The social class I was born into | 27 |
The same research argues that, in a media-saturated consumer society, people increasingly assemble a "pick-and-mix" identity from the goods and images on offer, treating the marketplace as a kind of supermarket of style. Others, however, insist that the choices people are able to make are still shaped by their class, gender and ethnicity, and that taste itself is patterned by background rather than freely chosen.
Question: Applying material from Item A and your knowledge, evaluate the view that consumption has become more important than social class in shaping people's identities. [20 marks]
Read Item B below and answer the question that follows.
Item B — written for this exercise
Sociologists argue that the differences in how men and women see themselves owe far more to upbringing than to biology. Writing for this exercise, one commentator observes that "from the moment a child is dressed in pink or blue, parents tend to encourage 'gender-appropriate' play, steering girls towards dolls and the home corner and boys towards construction toys and rough games, while praising or correcting behaviour that fits or breaks the expected mould." The same commentator notes that these early lessons are reinforced well beyond the home, as children learn what it means to be a girl or a boy from the toys, magazines, television and friendship groups that surround them.
Question: Applying material from Item B, analyse two ways in which gender identities are socially constructed. [10 marks]
Outline and explain two ways in which globalisation may have affected people's sense of national identity. [10 marks]
Outline three agencies of socialisation through which identities are formed. [6 marks]
Outline two ways in which ethnic identity may be expressed or maintained. [4 marks]
Outline two criticisms of the postmodernist view of identity. [4 marks]