Strat 4: Charles Murray

Question 1

D: What type of sociologist is CM?

E: Which political party is his approach associated with?

C: How is his approach somewhat similar to functionalism?

Answer 1

D: New Right

E: The right wing- so in the UK, The Conservatives.

C: They start with the same idea that there are a shared set of norms and values.

Question 2

D: What country did CM base his research on?

E: In which decade is his research based?

C: Which Government was in power in the UK when CM published his research?

Answer 2

C: America

E: The 1980s- popular in the 1980s and 1990s.

C: The Tories= M Thatcher, then John Major

Question 3

D: What did CM blame for increasing poverty?

E: Why?

C: When did this system start?

Answer 3

D: The Welfare State (benefits)

E: Because people did not have to take responsibility for their actions.

C: Post WWII, the benefits state brought in welfare, the NHS, the 1944 Butler Act

Question 4

D: What was CM’s research method?

E: Name 1 advantage and 1 disadvantage of this method

C: How did CM apply his findings to the UK?

Answer 4

D: Secondary, quantitative sources.

E: Advantages- quicker, cheaper, more representative.
Disadvantages- lacks validity.

C: He visited the UK in the 1980s and said that there was evidence for the underclass here.

Question 5

D: What is the ‘underclass’?

E: Why is the term ‘underclass’ problematic?

C: How can we criticise CM?

Answer 5

D: A group of people underneath the working class, people who didn’t want to work and ‘scrounged’ benefits.

E: Because it is putting people ‘below’, it assumes they don’t want to work and blames them for their own poverty.

C: He hasn’t proved that the underclass exists- he doesn’t show that there are groups of people with separate norms and values.