Name: Crash Course Sociology #2: Major Sociological Paradigms Student Worksheet
SKU: 65cbc4a402d402190d608982
Price: 39.99 USD
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About this resource

What's inside this resource

Crash Course Sociology Student Worksheet on Major Paradigms provides educators with a 2-page digital worksheet assessing student comprehension of the Crash Course video on major sociological paradigms. Walking through key concepts in the video, the worksheet poses 15 critical thinking questions for students to answer. An answer key is included so teachers can review student responses. This supplemental resource is useful for whole class discussions, small group analysis, or independent review of the sociological paradigms of structural functionalism, conflict theory, and symbolic interactionism. Exploring the assumptions and dysfunctions in sociological theories, the worksheet supports social studies curriculum for secondary school grade levels. With a visually engaging design, it can be easily implemented in various learning formats both online and in the classroom.

In the classroom

Teaching tips & learning objectives

Learning objectives

Define a paradigm as a model of concepts and theories that frames a perspective on a topic such as the social world
Explain why raw facts like an unemployment rate or a person's height need interpretation, and why every scientific discipline makes assumptions about the world
Distinguish macro-level questions about large-scale structures (the transition from feudalism to capitalism) from micro-level questions about interaction between individuals, and explain how a micro question illuminates a macro pattern
State the basic claim of structural functionalism, conflict theory and symbolic interactionism, and attribute the theory of class conflict to Karl Marx
Distinguish manifest from latent social functions and define social dysfunction

Teaching tips

Play the linked episode once straight through before the sheets go out; every item is written to be answered from the video rather than from a textbook passage.
Items 6 and 7 are the pivot of the sheet - the key answers them with paired examples (feudalism to capitalism on the macro side, how doctors talk to patients of different races on the micro side), so pausing the video there puts the contrast in front of students while it is fresh.
Items 8 through 15 form a self-contained block on the three paradigms and work on their own as a next-day review or exit task once the episode has been watched.
Item 13 is the only name-recall item on the sheet; pair it with item 12 so students attach Karl Marx to the account of society struggling over scarce resources rather than memorising the name in isolation.
Assign the Word version for typed responses in the lettered blanks, or print the PDF version when students are watching together and writing by hand.

Skills covered

Structured note-taking from video — students answer fifteen numbered questions directly from the linked Crash Course episode, writing each response in the lettered blank beneath the question.
Comparing sociological paradigms — students state the basic assumption of structural functionalism, how conflict theory imagines society as groups struggling over scarce resources, and what symbolic interactionism is built to deal with.
Levels-of-analysis reasoning — students separate macro questions about large-scale structures from micro questions about individual interaction, then explain how the two are connected through an example such as racial disparities in healthcare.
Defining sociological terms in writing — students give short written definitions of paradigm, raw facts, manifest and latent functions, and social dysfunction.
Attributing theory to theorist — students identify Karl Marx as the author of the theory of class conflict within the conflict-theory paradigm.

Good to know

Questions teachers ask about this resource

What do students need in front of them before they start writing?

The episode itself. The sheet's header carries a "Link to Episode" line and the direction "Use the video linked above to answer the following questions within the field of Sociology," and each of the fifteen items is written to be answered from that viewing. The Crash Course video is a third-party YouTube release reached through that link rather than a part of the download.

Which sociological ground does the fifteen-item sequence actually cover?

It opens on the nature of sociological models - what a paradigm is, why raw facts such as an unemployment rate need interpretation, and why every discipline works from assumptions. Items 6 and 7 handle macro versus micro levels of analysis. Items 8 through 15 take the three paradigms in turn: structural functionalism with manifest and latent functions and social dysfunction, conflict theory and Karl Marx on class conflict, and symbolic interactionism as a micro-level approach to the shared reality people build through everyday interaction.

Do the fifteen worked responses line up item for item with the fifteen questions?

From item 8 onward they line up exactly - the three paradigms, structural functionalism, manifest and latent functions, dysfunction, conflict theory, Marx and symbolic interactionism each sit at the matching number. Across the opening seven items the worked responses cover the same material (paradigm, raw facts, assumptions, macro and micro orientation) but in a slightly different order from the questions, so that opening block is best reviewed as a set rather than strictly number by number.