The Concept of Culture
High culture, popular culture and mass culture Contents The main sections of this page are set out below. Key terms Culture: the whole shared way of life of a group or society, including its norms, values, beliefs, customs, knowledge and language, passed on from one generation to the next. Norms: the specific, everyday rules that […]
THE FILIBUSTER: 16 August 2026
Histpology.co.uk briefing for A-level Politics – 15 August 2026 ISSUE • 8 AUGUST – 15 AUGUST 2026 IN THIS ISSUE This briefing covers the most significant developments in US politics from the past week for A-level Politics students. It was an unusually busy week combining institutional and personality-driven news: an escalation of the White House […]
The Filibuster – Sunday 16 August 2026
students. It was an unusually busy week combining institutional and personality-driven news: an escalation of the White House ballroom dispute at the Supreme Court, two further examples of unilateral presidential power over the military and trade, and two stories about senior political figures managing their own public image. CHECKS ON THE EXECUTIVE Trump asks the […]
Perspectives: Lessons 5 – 8
Perspectives: Lessons 5-8 (continued from Lessons 1-4) Lesson 5: Functionalist perspectives: the organic analogy, value consensus and social order Specification links: AQA 7192 Theory and Methods (3.1.3/3.3.2) and the core theme of social differentiation, power and stratification, per Block 1 (Week 2) of the department’s scheme of work. Lesson objectives By the end of this […]
Perspectives: Lessons 1 – 4
Lesson 1: Introduction to sociological perspectives Specification links: Foundational content underpinning AQA 7192 Theory and Methods (3.1.3/3.3.2) and both core themes (socialisation, culture and identity; social differentiation, power and stratification), per Block 1 of the department’s scheme of work. Not a discrete examined topic in its own right, so treat as groundwork rather than forcing […]
Perspectives in Sociology – Infographic
Mapping the Sociological Perspectives A detailed infographic companion to the 20-minute read | histpology.co.uk A Level Sociology Figure 1: the core list of sociological perspectives, classified by structural/social action type and consensus/conflict sub-type, with structuration-influenced and grand-narrative-rejecting perspectives placed outside that split. See the companion 20-minute read (histpology_sociology_perspectives_20min.docx) and the full “Grouping the Perspectives” page […]
Perspectives in Sociology – 20 Minute Read
Sociological Perspectives: The Complete Overview A Level Sociology | AQA 7192 | A 20-minute read “The basic domain of study of the social sciences, according to the theory of structuration, is neither the experience of the individual actor, nor the existence of any form of social totality, but social practices ordered across space and time.” […]
Late Modernity in 5 Minutes
A 5-minute read | sociological perspectives, condensed Full study notes: Late Modernity: Risk, Reflexivity and the Uncertain Self, elsewhere on histpology.co.uk. “A runaway engine of enormous power which, collectively as human beings, we can drive to some extent but which also threatens to rush out of our control.” — Anthony Giddens, The Consequences of Modernity […]
Postmodernism in 5 Minutes
A 5-minute read | sociological perspectives, condensed Full study notes: Postmodernism: Media, Consumption and the Death of the Grand Narrative, elsewhere on histpology.co.uk. “Simplifying to the extreme, I define postmodern as incredulity toward metanarratives.” — Jean-François Lyotard, The Postmodern Condition (1979) A metanarrative is a grand story a culture tells itself to explain and justify […]
Interactionism in 5 Minutes
A 5-minute read | sociological perspectives, condensed Full study notes: Interactionism: Meaning, Labelling and the Social Construction of Everyday Life, elsewhere on histpology.co.uk. “If men define situations as real, they are real in their consequences.” — W. I. Thomas and Dorothy Swaine Thomas, The Child in America (1928) Thomas and Thomas wrote this while studying […]