Postgraduate Course: Social Demography (SCIL11024)
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 aim of the course is to introduce a sociological approach to the study of human population. It does this by maintaining a dual focus, both on a substantive topic, the reproduction of population, and reflexive consideration of how knowledge of this comes to be produced and considered to be $ùsocial science&©. It considers the sometimes bizarre disciplinary division of labour between sociology and demography, the importance of the state as an institution in the development of demography as a discipline, and the way in which this has influenced and continues to influence the kinds of analysis it has developed. |
Entry Requirements (not applicable to Visiting Students)
Pre-requisites |
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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
Not being delivered |
Summary of Intended Learning Outcomes
In the course students will:
&· Learn the key concepts and theoretical approaches, including some of the statistical techniques, used in the study of population;
&· Enhance their ability to analyse the nature of social change, especially through the consideration of $ùlongitudinal&© analysis;
&· Examine the relationship between sociological argument and evidence, and distinguish sociological analysis from other forms of understanding.
Students will become familiar with and be able to assess critically such issues as:
What defines a population? a generation? a family?
What does the reproduction of population comprise?
What was the $ùDemographic Transition&© in Europe, and what is the significance of debates about its character, and its fundamental importance for the contemporary world;
Changing patterns of fertility in the world, and whether and in what ways the desire to have children or form a family may be sociologically explained.
What the phenomenon of $ùpopulation ageing&© comprises, and what its causes and consequences may be;
The way in which international politics have influenced the development of demography as a discipline.
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Assessment Information
The course will be assessed by a project worth 25%, and a 4,000 word essay worth 75%. |
Special Arrangements
None |
Additional Information
Academic description |
Not entered |
Syllabus |
Students will attend a weekly one hour lecture and one hour seminar which is shared with the undergraduate $ùSocial Demography&© course. In addition they will be required to attend five fortnightly seminars solely for postgraduates on the topics of:
&· Sources of demographic data
&· Quantitative and qualitative research methodologies in social demography
&· Gender and demography
&· Demographic transition theory
&· Recent demographic trends in Scotland
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Transferable skills |
Not entered |
Reading list |
Indicative Reading List
Anderson, Mike. (2004). One Scotland or several: the historical evolution of Scotland&©s population over the past century and its implications for the future, in. Scotland's Demographic Challenge. R. Wright (ed).
Aries, Phillipe 1980. 'Two successive motivations for the declining birth rate in the West'. Population and Development Review 6: 645-650.
Billari, Francesco & Tomas Frejka, John Hobcraft, Miloslav Macura and Dirk J. van de Kaa 2004 $ùDiscussion of paper Explanations of the fertility crisis in modern societies: A search for commonalities&© in Population Studies. 58:77-92.
Caldwell, J. C. and T. Shindlmayr (2003). "Explanations of fertility crisis in modern societies: A search for commonalities." Population Studies 57: 241-263.
Caldwell, John C. , Caldwell, Pat & McDonald, Peter 2002 $ùPolicy Responses To Low Fertility And Its Consequences: A Global Survey&© in Journal of Population Research Vol. 19, No. 1.
Castles, F. (2003) $ùThe world turned upside down: below replacement fertility, changing preferences and family-friendly public policy in 21 OECD countries.&© Journal of European Social Policy 13:201- 227.
Chesnais, J.-C. (1998). "Below-Replacement Fertility in the European Union (EU-15): Facts and Policies, 1960-1997." Review of Population and Social Policy 7: 83 - 101.
Cleland, John & Wilson, Christopher 1987 $ùDemand Theories of the Fertility Transition: an Iconoclastic View&© in Population Studies, Vol. 41, No. 1. pp. 5-30.
Cleland, John 2001 $ùThe Effects of Improved Survival on Fertility: A Reassessment&© Population and Development Review, Vol. 27, Supplement: Global Fertility Transition. (pp. 60-92.)
Council of Europe, Recent Demographic Development in Europe. Strasbourg: Council of Europe Press. Most recent editions available at http://www.coe.int/t/e/social_cohesion/population/demographic_year_book/
Coleman D. 2003 $ùFacing the 21st Century: new developments, continuing problems&© Oxford Centre for Population Studies Working Paper Series no. 17.
Coleman D. 2003 $ùWhy we don&©t have to believe without doubting in the $ùSecond Demographic Transition&©: Some agnostic comments.&©
Coleman, D. and Roger Schofield (eds.), The State of Population Theory: Forward from Malthus. Oxford: Oxford Univ. Press, 1986.
Malthus, D An Essay on the Principle of Population (London: Pelican Books, 1970) (Anthony Flew, editor).
Davis, K. (1937) $ùReproductive Institutions and the Pressure for Population.&© In Sociological Review. pp. 289-306.
Demeny, P. (2003). "Population Policy Dilemmas in Europe at the Dawn of the Twenty-first Century." Population and Development Review 29(1): 1-28.
Demeny, Paul. 1986. "Pronatalist Policies in Low-Fertility Countries: Patterns, Performance, and Prospects." Population and Development Review Supplement to vol. 12:335-358.
Dunnell, Karen 2007 $ùThe Changing Demographic picture of the UK&© in Population Trends 130: 9 $ú 21.
Fahey, T. and Z. Speder (2004). Fertility and Family Issues in an Enlarged Europe. Luxembourg, Office for the Official Publications of the European Communities.
Folbre, N. (1994). Who pays for the kids? : gender and the structures of constraint. London, Routledge.
Folbre, N. (1997). "The Future of the Elephant Bird." Population and Development Review 23(3): 647-654.
Gary Becker, "An Economic Analysis of Fertility", in National Bureau of Economic Research, Demographic and Economic Change in Developed Countries, pp.209-234.
Giddens, A. (1992). The Transformation of Intimacy: Love Sexuality and Eroticism in Modern Societies. Cambridge, Polity.
Goldstein, J., Lutz, W. and Testa, M. 2003. $ùThe emergence of sub-replacement family size ideals in Europe&©, Population Research and Policy Review, 22 (5-6): 479 $ú 496.
Graham, Elspeth, Lynn Jamieson & John MacInnes $ùFertility, Policy and the Future of Scotland&©s Population&© Ch 3 of General Register Office for Scotland (2008) Scotland's Population 2008. The Registrar General's Annual Review of Demographic Trends. Edinburgh: General Register Office for Scotland.
Haupt, Arthur & Kane, Thomas T. (n.d.) The Population Reference Bureau&©s Population Handbook 5th Edition. NY: Population Reference Bureau.
Hodgson, Denis. 1983. "Demography as social science and policy science." Population and Development Review 9:1-34.
Hodgson, Denis. 1988. "Orthodoxy and revisionism in American demography." Population and Development Review 14:541-569.
Hodgson, Denis. 1991. "The ideological origins of the Population Association of America." Population and Development Review 17:1-34.
Jean-Claude Chesnais, The Demographic Transition: Stages, Patterns and Implications (Tr. Elizabeth and Philip Kraeger). Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1992.
Judith Blake, "Are Babies Consumer Durables", Population Studies, Vol.22 (March 1968), pp.3-25.
Judith Blake, "Income and Reproductive Motivation", Population Studies, Vol.21 (November 1967), pp.185-206.
Kirk, Dudley 1944 $ùPopulation Changes and the Postwar World&© American Sociological Review, 9: 28-35.
Lutz, W., O&©Neill, B. and Scherbov, S. 2003. $ùEurope&©s population at a turning point&©, Science. 299(28), March.
MacInnes, John & Pérez, Julio (2006) $ùLow Fertility and Population Replacement in Scotland.&© in Population Space and Place.
MacInnes, John & Pérez, Julio 2008 $ùDemography&© in Bryan Turner (ed) The New Blackwell Companion to Social Theory. Oxford: Blackwell. [WebCT]
Mackenzie, Donald 1976. "Eugenics in Britain." Social Studies of Science: 499-532.
Mason, K. O. (1997). "Explaining Fertility Transitions." Demography 34(4): 443-454.
McDonald, P. 2005 $ùFertility and the State: the efficacy of policy&©. Paper to International Union for the Scientific Study of Population Tours, France, July.
McDonald, Peter. 2000. "Gender equity, social institutions and the future of fertility." Journal of Population Research 17:1-16.
McDonald, Peter. 2001. "Theory pertaining to low fertility." in International Perspectives on Low Fertility: Trends, Theories and Policies. Tokyo, 21-23 March 2001.: IUSSP.
McIntosh, C. Alison. 1986. "Recent Pronatalism Policies in Western Europe." Population and Development Review:318-334.
Myrdal, A. (1968 [1939]). Nation and Family. Cambridge Mass., M.I.T Press.
of Population Change. The Milbank Memorial Fund Quarterly, 49: 509$ú38). Reprinted in The Milbank Quarterly, 83, 731$ú57. (2005)
Omran, Abdel R. 1971 The Epidemiologic Transition: A Theory of the Epidemiology
Parsons, T. (1956). $ùThe American Family: Its Relations to Personality and to the Social Structure&© In Family socialization and interaction processes. T. Parsons and R. F. Bales. London, Routledge and Kegan Paul.
Population Reference Bureau $ùThe Future of Human Life Expectancy: Have We Reached the Ceiling or is the Sky the Limit?&© Research Highlights in the Demography and Economics of Aging no 8, March 2006.
Robinson, W. C. (1997). "The Economic Theory of Fertility Decline Over Three Decades." Population Studies 51: 63-74.
Ryder, Norman B 1964 $ùNotes On The Concept Of A Population&© in American Journal Of Sociology, 69 (5): 447-463.
Simon Szreter, &«The Idea of Demographic Transition and the Study of Fertility Change&ª, Population and Development Review, vol. 19 (December 1993), pp. 659-702.
Simon Szreter, Fertility, Class and Gender in Britain, 1860-1940. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996.
Sobotka, Tomás 2008 The diverse faces of the Second Demographic Transition in Europe in Demographic Research: Volume 19, Article 8.
Thane, Pat 2000 $ùThe $ùMenace&© of an Ageing Population, the 1920s to 1950s&©, Ch. 17 of Old Age in English History, Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Therborn, G (2004) Between Sex and Power. Routledge.
Thompson, W. (1929). "Population." American Journal of Sociology 34: 959-75.
Van de Kaa, D. J. (2002). The Idea of a Second Demographic Transition in industrialised countires. at http://www.ipss.go.jp/webj-ad/WebJournal.files/population/2003_4/Kaa.pdf
Wilson, Tom. and Phil. Rees (2003). "Why Scotland needs more than just a new migration policy." Scottish Geographical Journal 119(3): 191-208.
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Study Abroad |
Not entered |
Study Pattern |
Not entered |
Keywords | Not entered |
Contacts
Course organiser | Dr John Macinnes
Tel: (0131 6)50 3867
Email: john.macinnes@ed.ac.uk |
Course secretary | Miss Cristyn King
Tel: (0131 6)51 3865
Email: cristyn.king@ed.ac.uk |
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