Power and Authority

A fully resourced and engaging GCSE Sociology lesson exploring different forms and sources of power and authority, including formal and informal power, social control and Max Weber’s three types of authority.
This 21-slide lesson is designed to develop students’ sociological knowledge while providing plenty of opportunities for application, discussion, retrieval and exam practice.
Students explore:

• The difference between power and authority
• Formal and informal sources of power
• Formal and informal social control
• Key agencies of social control, including the family, education, police, peer groups, media and religion
• Positive and negative sanctions
• How agencies of social control encourage conformity
• Max Weber’s theory of authority
• Traditional authority
• Charismatic authority
• Rational-legal authority
• Applying Weber’s ideas to real-life examples and contemporary society
  The resource contains a range of student-friendly activities, including a Do Now ranking task, scenario-based activities, classification tasks, Social Control Files activity, Odd One Out retrieval task, Weber challenges, comparison table, Spot the Sociology activity and mini-whiteboard plenary. Several activities also include completed versions to support self-assessment and feedback. Different Forms and Sources of … Different Forms and Sources of …
  The lesson finishes with GCSE exam practice using past-paper questions, including 2-mark and 4-mark questions on power and authority. Different Forms and Sources of …
  Ideal for GCSE Sociology and particularly useful when teaching social stratification, power and authority and social control.
  Resource includes:
  21 presentation slides
  Clear sociological definitions and explanations
  Student-friendly examples
  Application and scenario tasks
  Challenge/stretch activities
  Self-assessment opportunities
  Retrieval and plenary activities
  Past-paper exam practice
  Attractive, classroom-ready presentation design
  Ready to teach with minimal preparation required.