AQA A-Level Sociology: Stratification and Differentiation
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
Sociologists disagree about which divisions matter most in shaping people's lives in modern Britain. Some argue that social class remains the single most powerful predictor of life chances, pointing to enduring gaps in income, health and education between those at the top and bottom of the class structure. Writing for this exercise, one researcher reports the following invented figures comparing outcomes by social class and by other characteristics:
| Group | Risk of living in poverty (%) |
|---|---|
| Routine and manual occupations | 31 |
| Managerial and professional occupations | 9 |
| Women (all classes) | 23 |
| Men (all classes) | 18 |
| Some minority ethnic groups | 35 |
The same research argues that while the class gap is wide, gender, ethnicity and age each produce their own patterns of disadvantage that do not simply disappear once class is taken into account, and that for many people several of these disadvantages overlap at once.
Question: Applying material from Item A and your knowledge, evaluate the view that social class is the most important source of inequality in modern Britain. [20 marks]
Read Item B below and answer the question that follows.
Item B — written for this exercise
A person's social class position is closely linked to the resources and opportunities they have across their life. Writing for this exercise, one study reports invented figures on how outcomes differ between the highest and lowest occupational classes:
| Outcome | Managerial and professional | Routine and manual |
|---|---|---|
| Average years of healthy life | 70 | 60 |
| Children reaching higher education (%) | 55 | 21 |
The study notes that these gaps appear early and tend to widen over time, as advantages in health and education accumulate, so that the class a person is born into continues to shape their opportunities long into adult life.
Question: Applying material from Item B, analyse two ways in which a person's social class position may affect their life chances. [10 marks]
Outline and explain two criticisms of the functionalist theory of stratification. [10 marks]
Outline three ways in which sociologists have defined or measured social class. [6 marks]
Outline two features of the Weberian view of stratification. [4 marks]
Outline two reasons why women are more likely than men to experience poverty. [4 marks]