Modernity, post-modernity and crime | AQA A-Level Sociology
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AQA A-Level Sociology | Free Revision Notes
Estimated study time:Â 75 minutes
Modernity and post-modernity offer contrasting ways of understanding social change and its effects on crime and social control. This Modernity, post-modernity and crime A-Level Sociology revision page explores how ideas about social structure, globalisation, consumption, diversity, media and risk can be applied to contemporary crime. AQA requires students to understand the concepts of modernity and post-modernity in relation to sociological theory, while Crime and Deviance requires a critical awareness of contemporary social processes and change. This builds directly on sociological theories and crime [Sociological theories and crime].
Learning Objectives 🎯
By the end of this revision page, you should be able to:
Define modernity, post-modernity and related sociological concepts.
Explain how ideas concerning modernity can be applied to crime and social control.
Apply post-modern ideas to contemporary patterns and forms of crime.
Explain the significance of globalisation, consumption, diversity and media for post-modern accounts.
Compare post-modern and late-modern interpretations of contemporary society.
Evaluate the usefulness of modernity and post-modernity for understanding crime and deviance.
Revision Notes đź“š
Modernity, post-modernity and crime A-Level Sociology revision overview
AQA requires students to study the concepts of modernity and post-modernity in relation to sociological theory. Within Crime and Deviance, students must also understand social order and social control, globalisation and crime, the media, surveillance, crime control, prevention and punishment. The course therefore allows the modernity and post-modernity debate to be applied directly to changing forms of crime and control.
AQA's assessment material identifies ideas relevant to this debate including:
globalisation
consumption
diversity
choice
metanarratives
media saturation
hyperreality
simulacra
global culture
risk society
reflexivity.
It also recognises late-modern approaches and Marxist, feminist and functionalist perspectives as ways of evaluating post-modern arguments.
The central question is:
Has contemporary society changed so fundamentally that older sociological explanations of crime are no longer enough, or are we experiencing changes within modern society rather than an entirely new post-modern society?
What is modernity?
Modernity refers to the form of society associated with the development of modern social institutions and attempts to understand society through broad explanations of how social life is organised.
AQA places modernity within a theoretical debate that also involves the Enlightenment, broad sociological explanations and the question of whether society has now become post-modern.
Modern sociological theories tend to search for underlying structures or processes that can explain social behaviour.
Examples elsewhere in the AQA course include theories that focus on:
socialisation
shared norms and values
social class
capitalism
patriarchy
social structure
formal social control.
These ideas should already be familiar from sociological theories and crime [Sociological theories and crime].
Modernity and explanations of crime
A modern approach can attempt to explain patterns of crime by identifying underlying social structures.
For example, crime may be explained through:
the organisation of society
inequalities between social groups
socialisation
access to legitimate opportunities
social control
the operation of institutions.
The aim is to identify relatively broad explanations that account for patterned social behaviour.
A structural approach to crime
Functionalist and Marxist theories differ greatly, but both can be used as structural explanations.
A functionalist may examine how socialisation, integration or unequal access to socially approved opportunities affects crime.
A Marxist may examine capitalism, economic inequality, power and selective law enforcement.
Modern sociological theories therefore often search beneath individual acts for wider social processes.
Modernity and social control
AQA requires students to understand social order and social control, alongside crime control, surveillance, punishment and the criminal justice system.
From the perspective of modern sociological theory, crime can therefore be examined through institutions that attempt to maintain order.
Formal social control includes responses organised through agencies such as the criminal justice system.
Informal social control operates through expectations, socialisation and other social relationships.
AQA's 2024 Paper 3 explicitly distinguished informal control through role expectations from formal control involving the criminal justice system and punishment.
These processes are explored more fully in crime control [Crime control] and the criminal justice system and other agencies [The criminal justice system and other agencies].
Modernity and surveillance
Surveillance can also be examined as part of the changing organisation of social control.
AQA requires students to understand both surveillance and its sociological significance. The specification therefore allows surveillance to be connected to wider theoretical debates about how modern societies regulate behaviour.
Surveillance may:
monitor behaviour
identify suspected offending
deter some individuals
contribute to formal social control.
However, surveillance does not automatically prevent crime. AQA's 2023 mark scheme recognised several limitations, including resistance, displacement of crime, unequal targeting and offences that remain hidden from surveillance.
This means theories of social control must be evaluated rather than assuming increasingly organised control inevitably produces less crime.
The topic is developed fully in surveillance [Surveillance].
What is post-modernity?
Post-modernity refers to the claim that contemporary society has changed sufficiently to represent a new type of society rather than simply a continuation of modernity.
In AQA's 2020 Theory and Methods assessment, postmodernists characterised contemporary society by:
consumption
diversity
choice
globalisation
and argued that metanarratives are less useful for explaining contemporary society.
AQA's mark scheme also identified:
media saturation
hyperreality
simulacra
global culture
pick-and-mix choices
flexible accumulation
niche markets
as relevant to post-modern accounts.
Metanarratives
A metanarrative is a broad theory or explanation claiming to explain major features of society.
Examples of broad sociological perspectives include explanations centred on:
capitalism
class
shared values
patriarchy.
Postmodernists question whether a single overarching explanation can adequately describe a society characterised by diversity, choice and rapid change.
Applied to crime, this challenges attempts to explain all criminal behaviour through one dominant cause.
For example, a single explanation based entirely on class may struggle to account for the full diversity of:
offenders
victims
motives
types of offence
locations
forms of social control.
This does not prove that structural explanations are useless. Instead, postmodernism questions whether one universal explanation is sufficient.
Diversity and crime
Diversity is a central feature of the post-modern view identified in AQA assessment material.
Applied to crime, diversity draws attention to the wide variety of contemporary offending and experiences of victimisation.
Crime can differ according to:
type
social context
location
social group
motivation
relationship between offender and victim.
A post-modern perspective therefore challenges explanations that treat crime as a single, uniform social phenomenon.
It encourages sociologists to consider multiple forms of crime and multiple explanations.
Choice and contemporary society
AQA's post-modernity material identifies choice as another feature of contemporary society.
Postmodern accounts emphasise that people's identities and ways of life are increasingly diverse rather than organised around one fixed social position or shared experience.
For crime, this makes simple predictions about behaviour more difficult.
A person's behaviour cannot necessarily be understood solely from one characteristic such as:
class
gender
occupation.
Postmodernism therefore questions explanations that make social identities appear too fixed or predictable.
Consumption and crime
AQA identifies consumption as a feature of post-modern society. It also appears in crime assessment material.
Consumer culture can be sociologically relevant because goods and lifestyles may acquire importance in people's identities and goals.
AQA crime mark schemes have recognised:
consumerism
individualism
materialistic goals
relative deprivation
as concepts that can contribute to explanations of offending.
Post-modernity places particular emphasis on consumption because identity and lifestyle may increasingly be expressed through what people consume.
This can be linked to contemporary explanations of crime without assuming that consumption causes all offending.
Globalisation and post-modern crime
One of the clearest applications of post-modern ideas to crime is globalisation.
Globalisation refers to growing connections and interdependence across societies.
AQA requires students to understand globalisation and crime in contemporary society, and post-modernity mark schemes explicitly identify globalisation as a defining characteristic of contemporary social change.
Globalisation may change:
opportunities for crime
the geographical reach of offending
relationships between offenders and victims
the ability of states to regulate activity
forms of cooperation used to control crime.
AQA's 2023 Paper 3 stated that increased global interconnection and new technology have created new opportunities and new types of crime, including cybercrime. It also recognised international cooperation as a possible way to tackle crimes crossing national boundaries.
This relationship is developed in globalisation and crime [Globalisation and crime].
New technology and contemporary crime
New technology provides a particularly useful application of the argument that contemporary crime is changing.
AQA examination material specifically recognises:
cybercrime
financial crime
economic crime
global criminal opportunities
within debates about globalisation and contemporary crime.
Technology may allow:
offending across geographical boundaries
new relationships between offenders and victims
new opportunities for criminal activity
crime to operate within global networks.
This supports the post-modern emphasis on rapidly changing and increasingly interconnected social life.
However, technological change by itself does not prove that society has become post-modern. Late-modern theorists can accept major technological change while arguing that we remain within a transformed form of modernity.
Media saturation
AQA identifies media saturation as a concept relevant to post-modernity.
Media saturation refers to the increasing presence and importance of media within social life.
This has several possible connections with crime.
The media may influence:
how crime is represented
which crimes receive attention
perceptions of risk
understandings of offenders and victims
responses to particular forms of deviance.
AQA separately requires students to study the relationship between the media and crime [The media and crime], making this a useful synoptic connection.
Hyperreality
Hyperreality is associated with the post-modern argument that media representations become increasingly important in people's understanding of reality.
Rather than assuming that individuals experience crime directly, post-modern approaches draw attention to the role of mediated images and representations.
This can matter because people's understanding of:
the seriousness of crime
who is dangerous
the likelihood of victimisation
what counts as a major social problem
may be affected by media representations.
AQA Crime and Deviance examination material has repeatedly recognised that media representations of crime may not reflect patterns of crime accurately.
The key distinction is:
The social reality of crime and its media representation are not necessarily identical.
Simulacra
Simulacra is another concept listed by AQA in its post-modernity mark scheme.
It is associated with the idea that representations and images may take on an importance of their own rather than simply providing a straightforward reflection of an underlying reality.
Applied cautiously to crime, this reinforces the importance of studying representations of crime rather than assuming that media images simply reproduce crime exactly as it occurs.
Post-modernity and the changing nature of crime
Post-modernity is particularly useful for drawing attention to diversity and change.
A post-modern interpretation might emphasise that contemporary crime includes:
locally based offending
globally connected offending
offences facilitated by new technology
corporate and financial crime
environmental crime
state crime
forms of crime strongly shaped by media and global communication.
These areas all fall within AQA's Crime and Deviance specification.
The key point is not that postmodernism has one simple theory of why people offend. Instead, its contribution is to question whether older, single-cause explanations are sufficient for an increasingly diverse and globalised social world.
Post-modernity and social control
If crime becomes more varied and crosses traditional boundaries, social control may also have to operate differently.
AQA requires students to study:
crime control
surveillance
prevention
punishment
the criminal justice system
other agencies.
Globalised crime can also create challenges for social control because offences may cross national boundaries.
AQA's 2023 examination material recognised both:
new global opportunities for crime
greater international cooperation in controlling crime.
Post-modern accounts therefore help students recognise that social control is not limited to a simple relationship between an offender and one national criminal justice system.
Late modernity
A major criticism of postmodernism comes from late-modern approaches.
Late-modern theorists accept that society has experienced major changes but reject the argument that we have moved into an entirely new post-modern type of society.
Instead, contemporary changes can be understood as developments within modernity.
AQA's post-modernity mark scheme explicitly recognises late modernity as an important evaluation of post-modernism and lists risk society and reflexivity among relevant concepts.
Risk society
Risk society is associated in AQA assessment material with Beck.
It draws attention to the growing importance of understanding and managing risks produced within contemporary society.
AQA's global crime mark scheme includes both:
risk society
manufactured risks
as relevant sociological concepts.
Applied to crime, this may help explain increased concern with:
identifying risks
monitoring populations
surveillance
crime prevention
anticipating new forms of harm.
Risk therefore links late modernity with changing forms of social control.
Manufactured risks
Manufactured risks are risks connected with the processes and developments of contemporary society itself.
The relevance to crime can be seen in AQA's inclusion of manufactured risks within questions concerning globalisation and crime.
As societies become increasingly interconnected, developments that create opportunities may also create new forms of risk.
For example, AQA explicitly connects new technology and global interconnection with new opportunities and types of crime.
The key late-modern point is that these changes do not necessarily mean modernity has ended. They may instead show that modern processes have become more complex and far-reaching.
Reflexivity
Reflexivity is another concept identified by AQA in the modernity and post-modernity debate.
Reflexivity involves continually reconsidering behaviour and institutions in the light of changing information and circumstances.
Applied to crime and social control, societies may repeatedly reassess:
perceived risks
crime-control strategies
surveillance
prevention
institutional responses.
This helps explain why crime-control policies and understandings of risk may change as new information becomes available.
Modernity, late modernity and post-modernity compared
Feature | Modernity | Late modernity | Post-modernity |
Basic view | Society can be understood through broad social structures and processes | Modern society has changed greatly but remains modern | Society has changed sufficiently to represent a new type of society |
Social theory | Broad explanations remain important | Modern theories need adapting to new conditions | Metanarratives are less useful |
Social change | Explained through developments in modern institutions and structures | Increasing globalisation, risk and reflexivity transform modernity | Diversity, choice, consumption and globalisation produce a more fragmented society |
Crime | Can be explained through structural and institutional patterns | Changing risks and conditions reshape crime and control | Crime is increasingly diverse, globalised and difficult to explain through one overarching theory |
Social control | Formal and informal institutions regulate behaviour | Greater concern with assessing and managing risks | Control must respond to diverse and changing forms of crime |
Evaluation | May overlook the scale of contemporary change | Offers an alternative to claiming an entirely new society | May underestimate the continuing importance of enduring structures and inequalities |
Is contemporary society really post-modern?
AQA's 2020 Theory and Methods question directly asked students to evaluate whether society today should be described as postmodern.
The item presented the post-modern argument that contemporary society is characterised by:
consumption
diversity
choice
globalisation
declining usefulness of metanarratives.
It then explicitly introduced criticism from Marxism and other perspectives.
There are therefore several ways to evaluate post-modernity.
Support: contemporary society has changed significantly
Postmodernism appears useful because AQA's Crime and Deviance content itself includes major contemporary changes:
globalisation
new technology
changing media
global crime
green crime
human rights and state crime.
These make crime more complex than a purely local phenomenon.
Criticism: structural inequalities continue
Conflict theories argue that enduring inequalities remain important.
For example, AQA crime material continues to examine:
social class
gender
ethnicity
capitalism
patriarchy
unequal power.
If these structures continue to shape crime and social control, claims that traditional structural theories have become irrelevant are difficult to sustain.
Criticism: society may be late modern rather than post-modern
Late-modern approaches agree that society has changed significantly.
However, concepts such as:
risk society
manufactured risk
reflexivity
allow sociologists to explain contemporary change without claiming that modern society has completely disappeared.
This is one of the most important evaluations of postmodernism for AQA.
Is post-modernity useful for understanding crime?
Post-modernity has several important strengths.
It draws attention to:
diversity
globalisation
new technology
consumption
changing identities
media saturation
new forms of crime
the difficulty of applying a single theory to every offence.
It is particularly useful for thinking about contemporary crime that operates across:
physical and digital spaces
national boundaries
different social contexts.
However, its usefulness is limited if diversity and fragmentation are emphasised so strongly that enduring patterns of:
class
gender
ethnicity
power
social control
are neglected.
The strongest judgement is therefore usually comparative rather than absolute.
Modernity or post-modernity?
Modern and post-modern approaches focus attention on different features of crime.
A structural theory may ask:
What social forces produce patterned differences in crime?
A post-modern approach may ask:
Can one structural explanation adequately account for increasingly diverse, globalised and mediated forms of crime?
A late-modern approach may ask:
Can these contemporary changes be explained as transformations within modernity rather than evidence of an entirely new society?
These approaches do not simply provide competing definitions. They lead sociologists to emphasise different evidence and explanations.
Applying the debate in an examination
When a question asks about post-modernity, avoid writing a general essay on contemporary crime.
Use a clear analytical sequence:
Identify the theoretical idea, such as globalisation, diversity, media saturation or the decline of metanarratives.
Explain the idea accurately.
Apply it to crime or social control.
Explain why this supports or challenges the view that society is post-modern.
Evaluate it, for example using late modernity or an enduring structural explanation.
For example:
Globalisation supports a post-modern interpretation because crime may increasingly operate across national boundaries and through new technologies. However, this does not by itself prove that society has become post-modern. A late-modern approach can accept globalisation and new risks while arguing that these are transformations within modern society.
That final sentence turns description into explicit evaluation.
Key Words 🔑
Key word | Student-friendly definition | How it may be used in an exam |
Modernity | A way of describing modern society in which broad structures, institutions and processes can be used to explain social behaviour. | Apply structural theories and institutional forms of social control to crime. |
Post-modernity | The claim that society has changed into a new form characterised by features such as diversity, choice, consumption and globalisation. | Evaluate whether contemporary crime requires new sociological explanations. |
Metanarrative | A broad theory that claims to provide an overarching explanation of society. | Explain why postmodernists question single explanations of crime based on one social structure. |
Globalisation | Increasing connections and interdependence between societies. | Apply post-modern ideas to global and technologically facilitated crime. |
Consumption | The importance attached to acquiring and using goods, services and lifestyles. | Link post-modern social change to identity, consumerism and some explanations of crime. |
Media saturation | The increasing presence and significance of media throughout social life. | Explain why representations of crime may become increasingly important. |
Hyperreality | A post-modern idea concerning the growing importance of mediated representations in people's understandings of reality. | Apply post-modernism to media representations and perceptions of crime. |
Late modernity | The view that contemporary society has changed greatly but remains a transformed form of modern society rather than becoming fully post-modern. | Evaluate post-modern claims. |
Risk society | An approach that emphasises the growing importance of identifying and managing risks in contemporary society. | Apply late-modern ideas to crime prevention, surveillance and new risks. |
Reflexivity | The continual reconsideration of behaviour and institutions in response to changing knowledge and circumstances. | Explain changing approaches to crime, risk and social control. |
Hints from the Examiner Reports đź’ˇ
Examiner hint:Â Learn post-modernity in depth rather than relying on the item. In the 2020 examination, Question 6 on post-modernity was the most challenging question. Examiners reported that many students had little knowledge of post-modern ideas and could not develop the item's points.
Examiner hint:Â Know relevant thinkers and concepts well enough to develop them. The same report found that many students could not name post-modern thinkers and showed little development of late modernity. Build revision around concepts such as globalisation, metanarratives, risk society and reflexivity rather than remembering only the word "postmodernism".
Examiner hint:Â Do not treat late modernity and post-modernity as the same argument. AQA's mark scheme explicitly recognises late modernity as a way of evaluating the claim that society has become post-modern.
Examiner hint:Â Develop the item rather than repeating it. Examiners found that weaker students stayed close to the post-modernity item rather than adding sociological knowledge and explanation. Use each item hook as the beginning of a paragraph, not as the whole paragraph.
Examiner hint:Â Avoid juxtaposition. In the 2020 post-modernity question, some evaluation simply placed another theory alongside postmodernism. Stronger evaluation explains exactly why a late-modern, Marxist or other argument strengthens or weakens the claim being assessed.
Examiner hint:Â Protect time for the final Theory and Methods question. The examiner report noted that running out of time affected some responses to the 20-mark post-modernity question. Plan a concise introduction and move quickly into developed sociological analysis.
Common Mistakes ⚠️
Mistake: Saying post-modernity simply means "modern society with more technology"
Why this is incorrect: Postmodernists make a broader claim that society has become a different type of society characterised by diversity, choice, consumption and globalisation, with metanarratives becoming less useful.
How to improve: Use several defining features rather than reducing post-modernity to technological change.
Mistake: Treating late modernity and post-modernity as synonyms
Why this is incorrect: They disagree about the scale of social change. Postmodernists argue that society has entered a new type of society. Late-modern approaches argue that major changes have occurred within modernity.
How to improve: Use late modernity as an explicit evaluation of post-modern claims.
Mistake: Listing features of post-modernity without applying them to crime
Why this is incorrect: Knowing that contemporary society involves globalisation or media saturation does not by itself answer a question about crime.
How to improve: Complete the chain:
post-modern feature → social change → effect on crime or social control → significance for the theory.
Mistake: Treating globalisation as proof that postmodernism must be correct
Why this is incorrect: Late-modern theorists also recognise globalisation and major social change.
How to improve: Explain that the disagreement concerns whether these developments constitute an entirely new society or transformations within modernity.
Mistake: Ignoring metanarratives
Why this is incorrect: AQA's post-modernity question explicitly identified declining confidence in metanarratives as a key feature of the perspective.
How to improve: Be ready to explain how postmodernism challenges overarching theories that attempt to explain all crime through one dominant social structure.
Mistake: Describing cybercrime without making a theoretical link
Why this is incorrect: Cybercrime is part of Crime and Deviance content, but simply describing it does not demonstrate knowledge of post-modernity.
How to improve: Explain why new technology and globally connected offending support arguments about rapid change, diversity and the weakening of traditional boundaries.
Mistake: Assuming older structural explanations are automatically useless
Why this is incorrect: AQA still requires students to understand patterns of crime by social class, gender and ethnicity, as well as structural and conflict theories.
How to improve: Evaluate whether enduring patterns of inequality challenge the claim that broad structural explanations have lost their usefulness.
Mistake: Writing "Marxists disagree" as evaluation
Why this is incorrect: This is juxtaposition, which examiner reports identify as weak evaluation.
How to improve: State exactly what the Marxist criticism is, such as the continuing importance of capitalism and inequality, then explain why this challenges the post-modern claim.
Exam-Style Questions ✍️
Question 1
Which one of the following is most closely associated with post-modernity?
A. A decline in global connections
B. Increasing diversity and choice
C. The disappearance of consumption
D. Greater confidence in all metanarratives
[1 mark]
Question 2
Define the term metanarrative.
[2 marks]
Question 3
Outline two features of society that postmodernists use to support the view that society has become post-modern.
[4 marks]
Question 4
Explain two ways in which globalisation may make contemporary crime different from crime operating only within national boundaries.
[6 marks]
Question 5
Explain two ways in which ideas associated with modernity can be applied to social control.
[6 marks]
Question 6
Outline and explain two reasons why late-modern approaches may challenge the view that society has become post-modern.
[10 marks]
Question 7
Read Item A below and answer the question that follows.
Item A
Contemporary societies are increasingly connected through global communication and new technologies. Crime may therefore cross traditional geographical boundaries. At the same time, media representations have become increasingly important in how people understand social events.
Applying material from Item A, analyse two ways in which post-modern ideas may help sociologists understand contemporary crime.
[10 marks]
Question 8
Read Item B below and answer the question that follows.
Item B
Postmodernists argue that contemporary society is characterised by diversity, consumption, choice and globalisation. They question whether broad theories can still provide adequate explanations of social behaviour.
However, other sociologists argue that enduring social structures continue to shape crime and that recent changes can be understood as developments within modernity rather than evidence of a completely new type of society.
Applying material from Item B and your knowledge, evaluate the view that post-modernity provides the most useful way of understanding crime and deviance in contemporary society.
[20 marks]
Answers and mark scheme
Question 1
Answer: B, increasing diversity and choice. [1 mark]
AQA identifies diversity and choice, alongside consumption and globalisation, as central features of post-modernity.
Question 2
Award up to 2 marks:
1 mark for identifying a metanarrative as a broad or overarching sociological explanation.
1 additional mark for explaining that it attempts to explain major features of society.
Question 3
Award 2 marks for each of two clearly outlined features.
Possible answers include:
Globalisation:Â societies are increasingly connected across national boundaries.
Diversity:Â social life contains a wider variety of identities, experiences and ways of life.
Choice:Â postmodernists place greater emphasis on individual choice.
Consumption:Â consumption becomes increasingly important within contemporary society.
Media saturation:Â media have an increasingly significant presence in social life.
Declining usefulness of metanarratives:Â broad theories are seen as less capable of explaining diverse contemporary experiences.
Maximum 4 marks.
Question 4
Award up to 3 marks for each developed explanation.
Possible answers include:
New technology can allow offenders and victims to be located in different places, contributing to forms of crime such as cybercrime.
Global connections may allow some criminal activities to operate across national borders.
Financial and economic activity across borders may create additional opportunities for offending.
Crimes that cross borders may require cooperation between states and agencies to control them.
Maximum 6 marks.
Question 5
Award up to 3 marks for each developed explanation.
Possible answers include:
Modern sociological approaches may examine how formal institutions such as the criminal justice system regulate behaviour through punishment and other forms of social control.
Structural theories may explain crime and conformity by examining socialisation, institutions and wider social structures.
Surveillance can be studied as an organised means of monitoring behaviour and attempting to maintain social order.
Formal and informal control can be examined as processes through which behaviour is regulated.
Answers must make the connection to modern sociological explanations rather than simply listing forms of crime control.
Maximum 6 marks.
Question 6
A strong response should develop two distinct challenges to the claim that society has become post-modern.
Indicative content includes:
Late modernity rather than post-modernity
Late-modern theories accept substantial social change but argue that society has not become an entirely new type of society. Globalisation and technological change may therefore represent transformations of modernity rather than its disappearance.
Risk society
Contemporary society may increasingly focus on identifying and controlling manufactured risks. This shows change within modern institutions rather than necessarily proving the existence of post-modernity.
Reflexivity
Institutions and individuals continually respond to new knowledge and changing circumstances. Social change can therefore be interpreted as modernity becoming increasingly reflexive.
Continuing social structures
Persistent inequalities and institutions may suggest that structural explanations still have value, challenging the view that metanarratives have become irrelevant.
8 to 10 marks:Â Very good knowledge and understanding of two developed reasons, with clear explanation and application.
4 to 7 marks:Â Reasonable knowledge of one or two reasons with some development.
1 to 3 marks:Â Limited understanding, with little development or confusion between post-modernity and late modernity.
Evaluation beyond the two explanations is not required.
Question 7
A strong answer should identify and develop two different hooks from Item A.
Hook 1: global connections and new technology
Post-modernity emphasises globalisation and the weakening of traditional boundaries. New technologies may create new opportunities and forms of crime, including offending that crosses geographical boundaries. This supports the post-modern argument that contemporary crime is increasingly diverse and cannot always be understood as a purely local phenomenon.
Hook 2: media representations
Post-modernity emphasises media saturation and concepts such as hyperreality. People's understandings of crime may be increasingly shaped by media representations rather than direct experience. This means sociologists need to consider both crime itself and how crime is represented.
For higher marks, each point should:
identify a clear item hook
connect it to a post-modern concept
apply that concept to crime
analyse why it changes sociological understanding.
8 to 10 marks:Â Two developed applications with appropriate analysis.
4 to 7 marks:Â Some successful application of one or two post-modern ideas.
1 to 3 marks:Â Limited knowledge, weak application or general description of crime without a clear post-modern connection.
Question 8
A strong response should apply Item B and maintain a debate between post-modernity and alternative explanations throughout.
Arguments supporting post-modernity may include:
globalisation has increased connections across national boundaries
new technologies have created new opportunities and forms of crime
contemporary crime is increasingly diverse
consumption and choice have become more significant
media saturation affects perceptions and representations of crime
older metanarratives may struggle to explain the variety of contemporary offending
global forms of crime challenge explanations focused only on individual nation states.
Evaluation using late modernity may include:
major social change does not necessarily mean society has become post-modern
risk society provides an alternative explanation of growing concern with new and manufactured risks
reflexivity explains why institutions continually adapt to changing conditions
globalisation can therefore represent an intensification or transformation of modernity.
Evaluation using structural perspectives may include:
social class remains relevant to patterns and explanations of crime
gender and patriarchy remain relevant
ethnicity and unequal social control remain relevant
capitalism and economic inequalities may continue to explain some offending
enduring social structures challenge the claim that broad sociological explanations have lost their usefulness.
Evaluation of post-modernity itself may include:
it is particularly useful for drawing attention to diversity, media, globalisation and changing forms of crime
it provides less of a single causal explanation of offending because it rejects overarching explanations
its rejection of metanarratives may make it harder to explain persistent social patterns
different contemporary crimes may require different combinations of structural and post-modern insights.
Judgement:
A strong conclusion should distinguish between recognising social change and accepting that society has become fully post-modern. Post-modernity is useful for understanding diversity, globalisation, media saturation and new forms of crime, but late-modern approaches show that these changes do not necessarily require abandoning modern sociological explanations. Continuing patterns based on class, gender, ethnicity and power also suggest that structural approaches remain important.
17 to 20 marks:Â Sound, conceptually detailed knowledge of post-modernity and relevant alternatives, accurate application of Item B, explicit analysis and evaluation, and a reasoned conclusion.
13 to 16 marks:Â Accurate, broad or deep knowledge with good application but more limited explicit evaluation.
9 to 12 marks:Â Largely accurate knowledge but limited range or depth, with evaluation often taking the form of juxtaposition.
5 to 8 marks:Â Limited, undeveloped knowledge of post-modernity with weak application.
1 to 4 marks:Â Very limited relevant sociological material.
AQA's own 2020 mark scheme placed answers showing detailed knowledge, sensitive application, explicit evaluation and appropriate conclusions in the highest band for a 20-mark post-modernity question.
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