Crime and Gender: Critical Thinking and Essay Writing

A third example of Jill Swale’s work, once more culled from the ATSS archive lurking in my expansive filing cabinet, is an essay-writing exercise constructed around the question:

“Assess the view that the women’s crime rate, according to official statistics, is lower than men’s because of differential enforcement of the low.”

The activity has three main objectives:

• To examine some important studies attempting to explain gender differences in crime rates.
• To encourage critical thinking about the methods sociologists use, and whether data can always be taken at face value.
• To help select material for a logically planned and balanced essay.

The exercise combines small group and individual work as students are required to examine ways to structure and answer the question.

Although the resource materials provided are fairly comprehensive they’re now quite a few years old and probably need to be updated with some new material.

You will need to check the suggested web links are still working and you may need to substitute some of your own.