Sociology
Sociology is the study of social life, social change, and the social causes and consequences of human behaviour. Sociologists investigate the structure of groups, organizations, and societies, and how people interact within these contexts. Since human behaviour is shaped by social factors, the subject matter of sociology ranges from the intimate family to the hostile mob; from organized crime to religious cults; from the divisions of race, gender and social class to the shared beliefs of a common culture; and from the sociology of work to the sociology of sports. In fact, few fields have such broad scope and relevance for research, theory, and application of knowledge.
Sociology provides many distinctive perspectives on the world, generating new ideas and critiquing the old. The field also offers a range of research techniques that can be applied to virtually any aspect of social life: street crime and delinquency, corporate downsizing, how people express emotions, welfare or education reform, how families differ and flourish, or problems of peace and war.
Because sociology addresses the most challenging issues of our time, it is a rapidly expanding field whose potential is increasingly tapped by those who craft policies and create programs. Sociologists understand social inequality, patterns of behaviour, forces for social change and resistance, and how social systems work.
The full A Level is broken down into four modules, two of them studied in Year 12 and a further two in Year 13. Students can, of course, elect to study the subject to AS Level only, either in Year 12 or in Year 13. In either case, they will then be studying the first two modules only.
There is no coursework option in the recently overhauled Sociology syllabus, so all of the above modules are each assessed via one terminal written examination paper taken in either January or June. Further information about A Level Sociology can be found by visiting the link below which will take you to the web site of the AQA examination board: http://www.aqa.org.uk/There is an option to re-take certain of these papers if this is deemed appropriate.
Sociology has its origins as an academic discipline in the 19th century, a period of dramatic and far reaching socio-economic, political and cultural change. A number of key thinkers are widely acknowledged as having established the subject at this time. Collectively known as 'the founding fathers' they include amongst their number the likes of Emile Durkheim, Max Weber, Karl Marx, Herbert Spencer and Auguste Comte
Durkheim was concerned primarily with how societies could maintain their integrity and coherence in the modern era, when things such as shared religious and ethnic background could no longer be assumed. In order to study social life in modern societies, he sought to create one of the first scientific approaches to social phenomena. Along with Herbert Spencer, he was one of the first people to explain the existence and quality of different parts of a society by reference to what function they served in maintaining the quotidian (i.e. by how they make society "work"), and is thus sometimes seen as a precursor to Functionalism.
Weber's most famous work is his essay The Protestant Ethic and the Sprit of Capitalism, which began his work in the sociology of religion. In this work, Weber argued that religion was one of the non-exclusive reasons for the different ways the cultures of the Occident and the Orient have developed, and stressed that particular characteristics of ascetic Protestantism influenced the development of capitalism, bureaucracy and the rational-legal state in the West. The essay examines the effects Protestantism had upon the beginnings of capitalism, arguing that capitalism is not purely materialist in Karl Marx's sense, but rather originates in religious ideals and ideas which cannot be solely explained by ownership relations, technology and advances in learning alone. 
" The merit of Marx is that he suddenly produces a qualitative change in the history of social thought. He interprets history, understands its dynamic, predicts the future, but in addition to predicting it, he expresses a revolutionary concept: the world must not only be interpreted, it must be transformed." Che Guevara, Marxist revolutionary. Marx wrote extensively on history and political economy. Although not a sociologist as such, his ideas and theories, on the historical development of society, the nature of mankind and people's economic relationship to one another and to the means of production, have had a very significant influence on a number of sociological schools of thought 
He developed a theory of two types of society, the militant and the industrial, which corresponded to evolutionary progression. Militant society, structured around relationships of hierarchy and obedience, was simple and undifferentiated; industrial society, based on voluntary, contractually assumed social obligations, was complex and differentiated. Society, which Spencer conceptualized as a 'social organism' evolved from the simpler state to the more complex according to the universal law of evolution.
Comte developed sociologie in an attempt to remedy the social malaise left by the French Revolution. The discipline was later formally and academically established by Emile Durkheim. Comte attempted to introduce a cohesive "religion of humanity" which, though largely unsuccessful, was influential in the development of various secular humanist organizations in the 19th century. He also created and defined the term 'altruism'.