How to Answer a 30 Mark Evaluate Question (AQA A Level Sociology): Revision Note

Here is an example of a 30-mark 'Evaluate' question with an Item (AQA, June 2018), followed by three extracts from a model answer:

Item B

Social class differences in achievement are found at all stages of the education system and sociologists have put forward several explanations for these differences. Some sociologists focus on factors outside school, such as the material circumstances of pupils' families or the ways in which parents socialise their children. Other sociologists see factors internal to the education system itself as responsible.

However, it can be argued that it is the interaction between these external and internal factors that produces class differences in educational achievement.

Q. Applying material from Item B and your knowledge, evaluate sociological explanations of social class differences in educational achievement.

[30 marks]

Extract 1: the introduction

Social class is the strongest single predictor of educational achievement in the UK. As Item B says, sociologists put forward several explanations for these differences, focused on either factors outside school or factors within schools. This essay will explore how the two interact.

Extract 2: a main body paragraph

As Item B also notes, others focus on "the ways in which parents socialise their children", and it helps to distinguish older cultural deprivation theory from Bourdieu's more recent cultural capital theory. Cultural deprivation theorists like Sugarman argue working-class subcultures value fatalism, collectivism, immediate gratification and present-time orientation, all of which clash with the values schools reward. Bernstein argued working-class pupils are socialised into a 'restricted' speech code while schools use the 'elaborated' code, which is the natural language of the middle class. Douglas found working-class parents showed less interest in their children's progress. The New Right pushes this cultural argument further, with Murray blaming an 'underclass' culture of welfare dependency and family breakdown for working-class underachievement, putting individual responsibility above structural causes. However, Keddie attacked cultural deprivation as victim-blaming, arguing working-class culture is simply different, not inferior, and that the real problem is schools designed around middle-class norms. Bourdieu offers a more sophisticated alternative through cultural capital, educational capital and habitus: middle-class children possess the knowledge, language and habits schools value, so what looks like fair meritocratic achievement is actually 'symbolic violence' against working-class pupils. Crucially, Bourdieu's cultural capital depends on economic capital, since buying books, paying for tutors and visiting museums all need money, so culture and material factors are linked rather than separate. This shows that cultural explanations matter but cannot fully explain class differences in achievement without bringing material deprivation back in.

Extract 3: the end of the conclusion

As Item B's final claim suggests, external and internal factors interact in a chain: material deprivation shapes the pupil's habitus, which triggers school labelling, which streams them into lower sets, which deepens alienation, which reinforces the original material inequality. Overall, class works through multiple connected mechanisms at once.

Top band response: 25–30 marks

Marking commentary:

The full response is in the top band because it shows conceptually detailed knowledge of a range of material, naming more than 15 sociologists and attaching a specific concept to each. The introduction is brief and uses Item B to set the direction of the essay. In the main body paragraph, evaluation is given throughout and not saved for the end: Keddie is used to challenge cultural deprivation theory, Bourdieu is then offered as a stronger alternative, and the paragraph ends by linking cultural factors back to material ones. This is the 'so what' that examiners look for. The conclusion returns to the final claim in Item B and reaches a judgement about how the explanations fit together, without introducing new points. It has three long main body paragraphs, so it uses the extra time to go into greater depth in each one.

Step by step structure of the full essay:

• Paragraph 1: A brief introduction uses Item B to set out the explanations that will be weighed up (AO2)

• Paragraph 2: Material deprivation is explained using several named sociologists, then evaluated using functionalist and Marxist views and linked forward to cultural factors (AO1 and AO3)

• Paragraph 3: Cultural deprivation and cultural capital are explained, starting from a quotation from Item B, with evaluation throughout (AO1, AO2 and AO3)

• Paragraph 4: Internal factors, such as labelling, streaming and educational triage, are explained, starting from a quotation from Item B, and then evaluated (AO1, AO2 and AO3)

• Paragraph 5: An evaluative conclusion weighs the explanations and judges that external and internal factors interact (AO3)