SECTION A

1)
a) What is meant by the term feral children?
Evidence of children rose with little or no human contact. These are sociologically
significant. Firstly because they fail to show the social and physical development we
would expect from a conventionally raised child (walk, talk). Second, if human
behaviour is instinctive its not clear why children develop so differently from children
raised with human contact this evidence the significance of socialization. Further
evidence for the importance of this process: the fact that different cultures develop
different ways of doing things. If human behaviours were governed by instinct: there
would be few or any differences.
b) Describe how any two norms may be linked to social values in society.
Norms are specific behavioural guides that tell people how to successfully play a role
and how people should act in a particular situation. One social norm in a society may
be to knock on doors, this is directly linked to the social value of privacy: its
expected that people, in their aim of looking for someone, will go and knock the other
persons door house, waiting to enter. However, if nobody opens, the person will
proceed to calmly leave the house. Another social norm can be the drinking-driving
rules which are linked to a wider propose: the social value of human life
(preservation). These rules (such as never drive alcoholised, and never get inside a
car whose driver is alcoholised) are one of the lots that hardly tries to preserve the
human life. Accidents due to driving alcoholised are every time increasing.
c) Explain why individuals and groups generally conform to accepted
standards of behaviour.
Individuals and groups generally conform to accepted standards of behaviours mainly
with the aim of reaching order and stability. Consequently, however, it gains
predictability and so, a form of social control. This is linked to a life-long process of
rule learning underpinned by sanctions. While there are positive sanctions (rewards,
pleasant things we do to make people behave in routine), there are also negative
sanctions that are the reverse: the punishments.
There are two basic forms of controls: written rules, with formal sanctions (formal
control). And on the other side therere the informal controls: rewards or punishes
acceptable/unacceptable behaviour in everyday, at informal settings (apply to
primary relationships). Basically, people tend to accept these standards of
behaviours so they wont be punished, they maintain their routine and order is
maintained.

d) The role played by socialisation in shaping human behaviour has been

overstated. Assess this claim.
Socialisation is the process through which people learn the various forms of behavior
consistent with membership of a particular culture to become a competent social
actor. This process is essential firstly because it brings order, stability and
predictability to peoples behaviors social control. Inside this we have two big
classifications: the primary socialization (family and people from our age), essential
for development and for learning social relationships and how to play roles; and the
secondary socialization characterized by formality and anonymity: essential to learn
how to treat strangers creates instrumental relationships.

To assess this, its helpful to analyze the feral children case. These are children that
have been raised with no contact with human, and so have lost the nurture part in
their nourishment. Consequently, when we realize that these children failed to show
the social and physical development we would expect from a conventionally raised
child, its evidenced the significance of socialisation. Besides, theres the fact that
different cultures develop different ways of doing things. If human behaviours were
governed by instinct: there would be few or any differences = significance of nurture
and socialisation again!
Finally, while functionalist talk about Socialisation, the post-modernists argues that
there are many forms of socialisation, not one single over-arching reality there are
many cultures, many stories.
SECTION B
3) Explain and assess the view that the strengths of quantitative research
methods outweigh their limitations.
Quantitative data is the one that expresses information numerically in the way of a
raw number, a percentage or a rate.
Although its true it has some limitations, its valid to admit that its strengths had
doubled them.
To begin with, this data is always useful to express relationships statistically if the
researcher doesnt need to explore the reasons for peoples behaviours.
While its a fact that quantification has often been achieved by placing the
respondent in an artificial setting (low ecological validity), and so some people
limited to say that its impossible to capture peoples real behaviour/responses,
what people sometimes forget to say is that it allows summarizing vast sources of
information, and making comparison across categories and over time. These, due to
correlation can test whether a hypothesis is true or false, and more important can
track changes in behaviour of the same group over time (longitudinal studies).
Eventhough the data collected is said to be superficial and to have a narrow range of
information (since it doesnt reveal the reasons for behaviour), whats more
important is its reliability: quantitative data is, as a matter of fact, easy to repeat with
different groups at different times (results: quantified and compared). This data
makes, consequently, it easier for the researcher to remain objective personal
biases less likely to intrude into data-collection since its not necessary to have
personal involvement within the subjects.