Question 1

SOURCE TEXT:
Item B

Carlen was interested in explaining female criminality, and conducted ground-breaking research.

She conducted her research using unstructured interviews with 39 women between the ages of 15 and 46, all of whom had been convicted of one or more crimes. According to Carlen, four major reasons were given by the women as to the cause of their criminality: poverty; being in residential care; drug and alcohol addiction; and the quest for excitement.

Although all the women had committed at least one crime for financial gain, most of them agreed that it was one of these four factors which led them to develop criminal careers.

Source: Carlen, P, Women, Crime and Poverty, (1988)

QUESTION:
From Item B, identify and describe the research method used by Carlen, including what you know of her perspective on female criminality.

Accepted Answer

First, identify the research method explicitly mentioned in Item B. Then, describe the key features of this method. Finally, link the choice of this method to Carlen's likely sociological perspective (feminism), explaining why a feminist researcher would favour this approach to study female criminality.

Question 2

What mistakes do candidates make on this AQA GCSE question?

Accepted Answer

Only identifying the method without describing it or linking it to Carlen's perspective. Simply quoting from the item is not enough for full marks.

How to approach this question

Full Answer

Common mistakes

Practice the full AQA GCSE Sociology Paper 2

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