Subjects: General

How do school students negotiate the pressures to perform well academically alongside the pressure to popular and cool? Carolyn Jackson combined questionnaires and interviews to research this question and this film uses her study, Lads and Ladettes, to illustrate why these methods are chosen, their respective strengths and limitations and how the strengths of one can be used to offset the limitations of the other.

Some research questions can only really be studied by sociologists getting out of their offices and interacting directly with the people they want to study. Starting with the famous Chicago School of sociology, this film looks at some classic studies to illustrate why participation observation is used in sociology, its major strengths and limitations and its contribution to sociological understanding.

If you go and see your doctor or a therapist, you’ll become a ‘case’ to them. They’ll want to know a lot more about you. Similarly, sociological case studies involve putting a social group, an event or a place ‘under the microscope’. This film looks at a classic sociological study, The Spiritual Revolution, to show why case studies are used in sociology, what they provide for the sociologist and the extent to which findings can be generalised.

Ask a hundred people what they think religion is and you’ll probably get a hundred different answers. However, to study religion we have bring together more general ideas about what religion is and what it does. This film, with Professor Eileen Barker of the London School of Economics, explains and illustrates the two dominant sociological approaches to religion: substantive (or exclusive) and functional (or exclusive). A great introduction for students new to the topic.

Sometimes practised far away from the world and sometimes in the full glare of hostile media, there are thousands of new religions. With examples, such as the Moonies, Scientology, the Missionary Church of Kopimism, Paganism and the doomsday cult Heaven’s Gate, this film identifies some of the characteristics of these new religious movements and how some scholars see their rise as an example of a major cultural shift where increasing numbers of people are losing faith in large institutions.

The controversies surrounding abortion involve a clash between two fundamental rights: the right of the unborn child, or foetus, and the rights of the mother. This film begins with the storm created by leading case of Roe vs Wade and then provides students with an unbiased analysis of the ethical issues underlying demands for the criminalisation and the legalisation of abortion.

Merton was one of the first sociologists to look at the relationship between culture and crime. This film provides a clear introduction to Merton’s strain theory, looks at its application to contemporary consumer societies and its continuing influence on modern theories of crime.