June 2025: AS Paper 2

Mark scheme

Examiner's comment

For students who focused on the idea of factors influencing research topic a range of possible and straight forward factors could be selected which would get credit. For example, a topic of personal interest to the researcher or a topic being currently debated and in the “news”. Some students, however, restricted their responses to considering factors influencing the choice of research method: such as those of validity or reliability. These responses did not meet the demands of the question and could not be rewarded.

Notes from the mark scheme and report

• factors influencing choice of TOPIC, not of method
• credited: researcher's values, funding, access, usefulness to society, topical/news issues, personal interest
• answers about validity or reliability (choice of method) gained no marks

Mark scheme, including the levels grid and indicative content

Examiner's comment

This question for most students was one they could answer, as official statistics feature as a main stay of sociological research methods. Obvious disadvantages, such as official statistics being often gathered for a purpose different to which the sociologist wishes to use them, gained credit. Where a student suggested a disadvantage that was not self-evident, they needed to explain and unpack the point to gain credit. For example, some students suggested official statistics are time consuming to use. This disadvantage could gain credit if it were developed, for example by suggesting that analysing and working though large amounts of statistics could be laborious. Ethics was an area which a significant minority of students declared as a problem but were unable to show how ethical concerns were an issue regarding official statistics. The most successful answers made links to perspectives and the objections of interpretivists to the use of official statistics.

Notes from the mark scheme and report

• focus is disadvantages of official statistics
• content: validity, reliability, social construction of statistics, verstehen, interpretivist objections, collected for other purposes, operationalisation
• drift into examples of statistics in general = 4-6
• points like 'time-consuming' or 'ethics' need explaining to earn credit
• best linked to interpretivist critique

Mark scheme

Examiner's comment

This question was drawn directly from the specification where the term mass culture features. Some students referred to mass culture as being synonymous with popular culture which was not creditworthy. Only a few answers managed to give the two-mark definition: attitudes, ideas and perspectives easily accessed. More commonly answers gained credit via examples including music and soap operas. A phrase that appeared frequently in responses was ‘liked by many people’ which was not creditworthy.

Notes from the mark scheme and report

• 2 marks for ideas or products easily accessed and enjoyed by many ordinary people
• an example (pop music, soaps) = 1 mark
• treating it as identical to mass culture or 'liked by many people' not creditworthy
• few gained 2 marks

Mark scheme

Examiner's comment

This question was successfully answered by most students. Popular approaches involved using aspects of interactionist theory labelling or the looking glass self to gain credit.

Notes from the mark scheme and report

• credited: master status, looking-glass self, rejecting others' perceptions
• labelling and looking-glass self were popular and successful

Mark scheme

Examiner's comment

On the 10-mark 'outline and explain' question (the fourth question in each topic area), and the 6-mark 'outline three...' question (the third question in each topic). In the 6-mark 'outline three...' questions, students could improve their performance by including a brief explanation of each identified point—such as a criticism or feature—rather than simply listing them. This question produced a wide variety of responses. Answers generally focused on differences in norms between a subculture and the dominant/mainstream culture. Successful responses referred to the “inverse” aspect of subcultures. Examples of subcultures (clothing / music ) were often used to help support answers.

Notes from the mark scheme and report

• credited: resistance to mainstream, style, inverse norms and values, slang, source of identity, sharing parent-culture values, arising from inequality
• best answers used the inverse-values idea
• examples like clothing and music supported points

Mark scheme, including the levels grid and indicative content

Examiner's comment

On the 10-mark 'outline and explain' question (the fourth question in each topic area), and the 6-mark 'outline three...' question (the third question in each topic). For the 10-mark 'outline and explain' questions, students would benefit from clearly identifying a specific way, reason, or factor, followed by a developed explanation. This approach would help make their answers more coherent, structured and easier to reward. This question appeared accessible to most students and some effective answers were given. Some students focused primarily on ethnicity and life chances rather than broadening the scope of their answers out to consider the totality of “experience” as a whole. More successful responses often drew on content from the education topic, exploring concepts such as labelling and the self-fulfilling prophecy. Discrimination was the most frequently mentioned theme, with higher-level answers developing this further into discussions of institutional racism.

Notes from the mark scheme and report

• two ways, each developed
• examples: discrimination/stigma, institutional racism, media stereotyping or under-representation, differential access, cultural practices, close communities
• drift into general accounts of ethnic differences = 1-3
• some narrowed to life chances rather than experience as a whole
• best developed discrimination into institutional racism

Mark scheme, including the levels grid and indicative content

Examiner's comment

This question proved to be straightforward. Responses were often well-focused and developed. Answers frequently made a tour of the agencies of socialisation. Oakley was often used in discussions of the family and gender socialisation whilst education and the media were commonly explored as examples of secondary socialisation related to gender. A minority of responses incorporated ideas around masculinity, including toxic masculinity which added breadth to the answer. Evaluation was sometimes limited to a basic juxtaposition of feminist and functionalist perspectives.

Notes from the mark scheme and report

• apply Item A (agencies transmit patriarchal values vs patriarchy declining and socialisation creating harmony)
• evaluation via liberal, radical, Marxist feminism or the view that patriarchy is declining
• most toured family (Oakley), education, media
• masculinity/toxic masculinity added breadth
• evaluation often only feminist vs functionalist juxtaposition

Mark scheme

Examiner's comment

For both marks students needed to identify the instrumental element (paid work) and the expressive element (housework) of the dual burden to and the majority of answers managed this.

Notes from the mark scheme and report

• 2 marks need both paid work and responsibility for domestic labour
• unequal number of roles = 1 mark
• mostly well answered

Mark scheme

Examiner's comment

Most students found this question straightforward and were able to gain both marks. Secularisation and changes in the position of women were popular ways of gaining credit.

Notes from the mark scheme and report

• credited: secularisation, less stigma for alternatives (cohabitation, single life), women's changed position, fear of divorce
• secularisation and women's position most popular

Mark scheme

Examiner's comment

On the 10-mark 'outline and explain' question (the fourth question in each topic area), and the 6-mark 'outline three...' question (the third question in each topic). In the 6-mark 'outline three...' questions, students could improve their performance by including a brief explanation of each identified point—such as a criticism or feature—rather than simply listing them. This question was answered very well, with many students providing a wide range of reasons for the lone parent families being headed by a woman. Women being awarded custody, general expectations of society and male abandonment proved popular reasons. The phenomena of some responses giving a valid reason being without it being developed (and so not gaining full marks) remains.

Notes from the mark scheme and report

• credited: men less likely to leave work, breastfeeding, courts awarding custody to mothers, father abandonment, women choosing lone parenthood, gender norms
• answered very well
• undeveloped reasons still lost the second mark

Mark scheme, including the levels grid and indicative content

Examiner's comment

On the 10-mark 'outline and explain' question (the fourth question in each topic area), and the 6-mark 'outline three...' question (the third question in each topic). For the 10-mark 'outline and explain' questions, students would benefit from clearly identifying a specific way, reason, or factor, followed by a developed explanation. This approach would help make their answers more coherent, structured and easier to reward. This question required students to name a diverse family form type, for example the lone parent family and suggest how that family form may impact on the domestic division of labour. One common way to do this was found in answers which suggested that in lone parent families the lone parent carried out the entirety of the roles and tasks making up the domestic division of labour. Answers which named a family type generally went on to be developed in an effective way. Where a diverse family type was not named, the development of the answer was limited and often could not gain credit.

Notes from the mark scheme and report

• must name a diverse family type and link it to the division of labour
• examples: dual-earner/neo-conventional, same-sex couples without gender scripts, lone parents doing all tasks, beanpole/extended and triple shift, cultural diversity
• general accounts of domestic division of labour = 1-3
• unnamed family types rarely earned credit

Mark scheme, including the levels grid and indicative content

Examiner's comment

This question was accessible to most students, many of whom had some strong content to draw upon in shaping their responses. The item was helpful and generally got students off to a sound start. Popular approaches to answering the question began with the Marxist view and then considered other views of the role of the family, typically feminist views and those of functionalism. More successful answers went further and examined more recent contributions to understanding the family such as Beck, Giddens and Smart considering ideas such as risk, pure relationships and fictive kin.

Notes from the mark scheme and report

• apply Item B (socialising into hierarchy, family as a market for consumer goods, functionalist mutual support)
• evaluation via other perspectives or the extent families act as consumer market
• common route: Marxist view then feminist and functionalist
• best brought in Beck, Giddens, Smart (risk, pure relationships, fictive kin)

Mark scheme

Examiner's comment

This was a new question but most students who answered gained full credit, obesity was often given as an example.

Notes from the mark scheme and report

• 2 marks for diseases arising from growing wealth
• an example such as obesity = 1 mark
• most gained full marks

Mark scheme

Examiner's comment

This question was answered well. Lack of physical adjustments for example and absence of ramps, lifts and other variants was the most popular way of tackling the question.

Notes from the mark scheme and report

• credited: lack of physical adjustments excluding people, discriminatory attitudes, media representation
• ramps/lifts was the most popular route

Mark scheme

Examiner's comment

On the 10-mark 'outline and explain' question (the fourth question in each topic area), and the 6-mark 'outline three...' question (the third question in each topic). In the 6-mark 'outline three...' questions, students could improve their performance by including a brief explanation of each identified point—such as a criticism or feature—rather than simply listing them. Students were generally confident in answering this question. Popular approaches focused on the ethnocentrism of medical practitioners, racism in society in general and the unequal treatment of ethnic minorities by law enforcement officers.

Notes from the mark scheme and report

• credited: racism and self-esteem, police/criminal-justice routes into care, psychiatric ethnocentrism, poverty, lack of power to resist labels
• generally answered confidently

Mark scheme, including the levels grid and indicative content

Examiner's comment

On the 10-mark 'outline and explain' question (the fourth question in each topic area), and the 6-mark 'outline three...' question (the third question in each topic). For the 10-mark 'outline and explain' questions, students would benefit from clearly identifying a specific way, reason, or factor, followed by a developed explanation. This approach would help make their answers more coherent, structured and easier to reward. This question proved to be difficult for students. The expected responses were ideas such as the working class having a more fatalistic attitudes to life and therefore choosing to ignore medical advice. Instead, most students focused not on the “advice take” up part of the question but more general issues of access to health care. As a result, many of these answers were not well applied to the question and struggled to gain credit. Better responses focused on themes of understanding advice, material factors influencing the ability to act on the advice and so on.

Notes from the mark scheme and report

• about take-up of preventive ADVICE by class
• examples: middle-class confidence with doctors, cultural capital, work commitments and transport, health knowledge, material limits on diet/exercise, working-class fatalism
• most drifted into general access to health care and gained little
• general accounts of class health differences = 1-3

Mark scheme, including the levels grid and indicative content

Examiner's comment

Some students produced well-structured, detailed, and analytical responses to this question. Successful answers effectively contrasted a range of view on the medical profession which mostly included functionalist, Weberian, feminist and Marxist views. Answers that adopted this approach often used a juxtapositional style of evaluation. The impact of ‘Big pharma’ was also present in some better responses along with more specialist concepts such as iatrogenesis.

Notes from the mark scheme and report

• apply Item C (Weberian professional strategies for status and power vs functionalist protecting patients)
• evaluation via functionalist, feminist, Weberian views or extent of professional strategies in the labour market
• sick-role-only answers = 5-8
• best covered big pharma and iatrogenesis
• many evaluated only by juxtaposition

Mark scheme

Examiner's comment

Most answers were able to give a definition of absolute poverty or to give an example of it and so gain the partial mark.

Notes from the mark scheme and report

• 2 marks for being unable to afford the basic necessities of life
• an example (e.g. homelessness) = 1 mark

Mark scheme

Examiner's comment

This question was quite intuitive, and most students could suggest why wealthy people are likely to stay wealthy for example through inheritance or being enabled by their wealth to be able to make investments.

Notes from the mark scheme and report

• credited: wealth generating more wealth through investment, cultural capital, talent
• inheritance and investment were common

Mark scheme

Examiner's comment

On the 10-mark 'outline and explain' question (the fourth question in each topic area), and the 6-mark 'outline three...' question (the third question in each topic). In the 6-mark 'outline three...' questions, students could improve their performance by including a brief explanation of each identified point—such as a criticism or feature—rather than simply listing them. This was a novel question but one that students had a range of responses for. Popular possible effects of retirement that were suggested included: reduced income / poverty, increased time for leisure pursuits, lack of identity through the absence of work and loneliness.

Notes from the mark scheme and report

• credited: lower income, lack of daily structure, time for hobbies, loss of role or identity, caring for grandchildren, loss of status
• loneliness also used

Mark scheme, including the levels grid and indicative content

Examiner's comment

On the 10-mark 'outline and explain' question (the fourth question in each topic area), and the 6-mark 'outline three...' question (the third question in each topic). For the 10-mark 'outline and explain' questions, students would benefit from clearly identifying a specific way, reason, or factor, followed by a developed explanation. This approach would help make their answers more coherent, structured and easier to reward. Students generally had no difficulty in finding reasons why manual workers may experience high levels of alienation. Answers often suggested: the various impacts of scientific management, poor pay and conditions, the negative impact of technology including surveillance and job insecurity. The development of the given reasons was often the limiting factor for some students. Some found it difficult to connect the reason to further development of it.

Notes from the mark scheme and report

• two reasons each developed
• examples: scientific management and monotony, poor pay and conditions, insecurity, lack of autonomy, deskilling by technology, few promotion chances
• general accounts of manual work = 1-3
• development was the usual limit

Mark scheme, including the levels grid and indicative content

Examiner's comment

The item for this question provided two ways to view the welfare state and many students took the lead given by first examining the Marxist view of the welfare state followed by the social democratic perspective. The most effective answers expanded the breadth of the debate into a consideration of the functionalist, New Right, feminist and postmodern views on welfare and the welfare state.

Notes from the mark scheme and report

• apply Item D (Marxist: welfare state maintains inequality and prevents opposition vs social democratic: tackles poverty)
• 13-16 e.g. New Right critique
• most followed the item's two views
• best widened to functionalist, New Right, feminist and postmodern views