Postgraduate Course: Key Debates in Global and International Sociology (SCIL11021)
Course Outline
| School |
School of Social and Political Science |
College |
College of Humanities and Social Science |
| Course type |
Standard |
Availability |
Available to all students |
| Credit level (Normal year taken) |
SCQF Level 11 (Postgraduate) |
Credits |
20 |
| Home subject area |
Sociology |
Other subject area |
None |
| Course website |
None
|
Taught in Gaelic? |
No |
| Course description |
The course will provide a general overview of key debates through a range of selected topics.
It will provide a balance between a focus on our local $ùsociety&© and more international or transnational perspectives.
The course will complement student learning in theory and methods of doing research by repeatedly returning to theoretical perspectives and their relationship to bodies of evidence, and the process of constructing the theoretical substance of data.
|
Entry Requirements
| Pre-requisites |
|
Co-requisites |
|
| Prohibited Combinations |
|
Other requirements |
None
|
| Additional Costs |
None |
Information for Visiting Students
| Pre-requisites |
None |
| Displayed in Visiting Students Prospectus? |
No |
Course Delivery Information
|
| Delivery period: 2010/11 Semester 1, Available to all students (SV1)
|
WebCT enabled: Yes |
Quota: None |
| Location |
Activity |
Description |
Weeks |
Monday |
Tuesday |
Wednesday |
Thursday |
Friday |
| No Classes have been defined for this Course |
| First Class |
First class information not currently available |
| No Exam Information |
Summary of Intended Learning Outcomes
&· To be able to construct a sociologically-informed argument, using appropriate evidence about contemporary societies and social processes.
&· To be able to demonstrate sociological understanding of the relationship between individuals, groups and social institutions and the importance of cultural and social context, social processes, social diversity and inequality
&· To have an appreciation of the value of comparative and transnational analysis;
&· familiarity with sociological understandings of
&· To be able to discuss social processes underpinning social change and social stability;
&· To understand the appropriate use of a range of research strategies and methods in gaining sociological knowledge; |
Assessment Information
| Assessment will be by a final essay of 3500-4000 words, on a topic to be agreed between the student and the course convenor. |
Special Arrangements
| None |
Additional Information
| Academic description |
This is a new core course designed for the new taught MSc in Sociology to provide students without a background in Sociology with an overview of debates around key substantive areas in the discipline. |
| Syllabus |
1. No such thing as society? An introduction to competing theoretical understandings of the processes by which we are socially shaped and of the concept of $ùsociety&©. Introduction of the idea of sociology $ùbeyond society&© (Donald MacKenzie)
2. Faith and Disenchantment. An introduction to key debates about faith, disenchantment and social change in the context of $ùglobalisation&© (Michael Rosie /Tom McGlew)
3. We never had it so good? A critical review of the relationship between modernity and autonomy using a range of examples including $ùsex, drugs and rock and role&© (John MacInness)
4. Deviance, Stigma and Intoxication: A review of theories of deviance, stigmatisation, processes of globalisation and patterns of drug use and intoxication and debates about drug and alcohol use (Angus Bancroft)
5. The City: (Nick Prior)
6. Violence in Social Life: the maxim that $ùone person&©s terrorist is another person&©s freedom fighter&©, captures the ambiguities and silences in dominant definitions of $ùviolence&© which are subjected to sociological analysis in this session (Hugo Gorringe)
7. The Making of Identities: develops current debates about how to understand the interaction of biographies with historically specific social circumstances and structural inequalities constraining who you can be, using examples of national and ethnic identity (Lynn Jamieson)
8. Gender Class and Identity: examines in more detail the arguments around when and whether class and gender identities can be adopted or abandoned as we choose (John MacInness)
9. Risk and Late Modernity: looks at $ùmacro&© level hazards produced by industrial societies, $ùmicro&© level understandings of how social actors deal with risks and the issue of how events come to be perceived as risky by social actors (Steve Kemp)
10. Social Change and Evolution: reviews our state of knowledge concerning the processes that tend to either promote, impede or direct social change (Jonathan Hearn) |
| Transferable skills |
Not entered |
| Reading list |
Beck, U. 1992 $ùFrom Industrial Society to the Risk Society: Questions of Survival, Social Structure and Ecological Enlightenment&©, Theory, Culture and Society, 9 (1): 97-123
Bechhofer, F. and McCrone, D 2007 Being British: A crisis of identity? Political Quarterly 78(2). Available online at http://www.institute-of-governance.org/onlinepub/being_british.html
Castells, M The Power of Identity 1997
Connell, R.W. Masculinities (Cambridge: Polity, 1995)
Chan, W. and Rigakos, G. 2002 $ùRisk, Crime and Gender&©, British Journal of Criminology, 42: 743-761
Chirot, Daniel (1994), How Societies Change, London: Pine Forge Press
Crompton, R. 2006. Employment and the Family: the Reconfiguring of Work and Family Life in Contemporary Societies Cambridge University Press.
Davie, G. The Sociology of Religion. London: Sage, 2007.
Elias, N. (1978) $ùOn Transformations of Aggressiveness&©, Sociology 5(2): pp229-242 Goffman, E, The Presentation of Self in Everyday Life 1956
Giddens, A Modernity and Self identity 1991
Green, J. 1997 $ùRisk and the Construction of Social Identity: Children&©s Talk About Accidents&©, Sociology of Health and Illness, 19(4): 457-479
Hearn, J. (2006), $ùPower&©, in Rethinking Nationalism: A Critical Introduction, Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, pp. 117-144.
Hechter, M. and Horne C. Theories of Social Order: A Reader 2003
Huntington S. P. Who Are We? America&©s Great Debate
Jones, G 2002. Killing Monsters. Chapter 2. New York: basic Books
Kleinman, A 2000. $ùThe Violences of Everyday Life&©, in V. Das, A. Kleinman, M. Ramphele & P. Reynolds (eds.) Violence & Subjectivity. Berkley: University of California Press: pp226-241.
Kennedy, Michael D. (2004), $ùEvolution and Event in History and Social Change: Gerhard Lenski&©s Critical Theory&©, Sociological Theory 22(2): 315-327
Lupton, D. 2004 $ùPleasure, Aggression and Fear&©, in W. Mitchell, R. Bunton and E. Green (eds.) Young People, Risk and Leisure, Houndmills: Palgrave Macmillan
Kumar,K. From Post-Industrial to Post-Modern Society 1995
Kyriakides, C. Virdee, S and Modood T. $ùRacism, Muslims and the National Imagination&© Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies 2009
McRobbie, A. In the culture society Routledge 1999
Nolan, P. and Lenski, G.(2004), Human Societies: An Introduction to Macrosociology, 10th edn, Paradigm Publishers Scheper-Hughes, N 2002. $ùPeace-Time Crimes & the Violence of Everyday Life&©, Ideas 9(1): 56-8: http://nationalhumanitiescenter.org/ideasv91/nycessay.pdf
Southerton, Dale $ùBoundaries of &«Us&ª and &«Them&ª: Class, Mobility and Identification in a New Town&© Sociology (2002)
Urry, J. Sociology Beyond Societies 1999
Vincent, N. Self Made Man: My Year Disguised as a Man 2006.
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| Study Abroad |
Not entered |
| Study Pattern |
Not entered |
| Keywords |
Not entered |
Contacts
| Course organiser |
Dr Aditya Bharadwaj
Tel: (0131 6)51 3861
Email: Adi.Bharadwaj@ed.ac.uk |
Course secretary |
Miss Cristyn King
Tel: (0131 6)51 3865
Email: cristyn.king@ed.ac.uk |
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31 January 2011 8:20 am
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