5N1370 Social Studies Assignment Brief 2026 | City of Dublin FET College

5N1370 Social Studies Assignment Brief

Assignment Details

1) Full project to be submitted on the 06/03/26 (contents page, essay & survey results

2) Face to face recorded discussion of essay and survey findings during subsequent classes.

Social Studies 25/26

The assignment is worth 50% so it is important that you put a considerable amount of time and effort into it to gain as much of the marks as possible.

Section 1

Write 1 essay on Social Stratification and discrimination, marginalized with a focus on one out of the six below topics. This essay should be within an Irish context

• Social Class.  
• Gender
• Age
• Ethnicity
• Sexuality

Times new roman size 12.  No pictures and bullet points.

Your essay should be 1500-2000 words in length and you should bring in a range of sources into your work – newspaper articles, research papers, internet articles etc.. Be careful to cite and reference any sources you bring into your work using the Harvard referencing standard

NB: Please start your essay with a short introduction explaining what Sociology as a subject is and what Social Stratification itself means.

Section 2

What you were doing in section one is known as secondary research where you compile your work based on other people’s findings.

Now you are going to conduct your own independent research known as primary research by drawing up a simple survey and handing it out to 15 people.  Your survey will be based on an element of your above chosen essay.

After that you will write up a results page (1 page) and finally will attend a one on one recorded presentation of your work.

1. The survey. Please have a look at my sample survey. I would not be expecting to see something of this size or complexity, but something looking like a mini version of it.

What you need to do is to draw up a brief survey of 10-15 questions exploring the topic of Inequality in relation to your essay above

So for example, you might pick – inequality in relation to gender. To examine women’s portrayal on tv,

Now draw up a short survey with the intention of asking 15 people on their views of this topic.

2. Looking at the sample survey I have attached you will see a small written note at the top introducing the topic. This is called a cover note and a short note like this should be at the top of all surveys, make it personal to your own topic but retain the same general points.

3. Next you have a set of questions known as demographic questions or population questions. You will ask your respondents re their Gender, age, ethnicity, where they live, occupation. if they are employed etc. even marital status is often asked. Again you can make these questions personal to your own topic.

4. Finally you will have 7-10 more questions about your specific topic. Have a look at the questions in my sample survey. You would not be copying the content but look at how the questions are structured. Don’t have endless open-ended question., just mix up the question formats to create an engaging user friendly survey.

Write up the survey using survey planet and distribute it to 15 people.

Once you get your surveys back compile the results by going through each question and counting up the types of responses you received. Simple yes/no questions are easy to analyse, the more open opinion based q’s a little time consuming but rewarding in terms of data.

The final part of your grade will be completed via an audio recorded one on one discussion of your topic and findings that will be scheduled after the final submission.

5N1370 Assignment Criteria