Postgraduate Course: Key Concepts in Global Social Change (SCIL11030)
Course Outline
| School | School of Social and Political Science |
College | College of Humanities and Social Science |
| Credit level (Normal year taken) | SCQF Level 11 (Postgraduate) |
Availability | Available to all students |
| SCQF Credits | 20 |
ECTS Credits | 10 |
| Summary | This course introduces students to key sociological concepts, their analytic utility, and their relevance for understanding and explaining major issues in global social change. It aims to define and interrogate fundamental concepts in sociology, while also illustrating these through timely and topical social issues of global scope in the news. While it addresses globalization, it puts this in historical perspective, and relates it to enduring ideas in sociological analysis.
The course will consist of a weekly series of lectures and discussions on key topics, complimented by student presentations on contemporary global issues. |
| Course description |
1. What is 'society' in a global era?
2. Sources of social order
3. Sources of social change
4. How people connect: social groups, networks, and organizations
5. The institutional nexus: state, society, nation and civil society
6. What are social trends?
7. Ideologies, cultures, knowledges and beliefs
8. Social movements within and across borders
9. World history, society, and systems,
10.'Globality' and globalisation
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Entry Requirements (not applicable to Visiting Students)
| Pre-requisites |
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Co-requisites | |
| Prohibited Combinations | |
Other requirements | None |
Information for Visiting Students
| Pre-requisites | None |
| High Demand Course? |
Yes |
Course Delivery Information
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| Academic year 2015/16, Available to all students (SV1)
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Quota: 32 |
| Course Start |
Semester 1 |
Timetable |
Timetable |
| Learning and Teaching activities (Further Info) |
Total Hours:
200
(
Programme Level Learning and Teaching Hours 4,
Directed Learning and Independent Learning Hours
196 )
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| Assessment (Further Info) |
Written Exam
0 %,
Coursework
100 %,
Practical Exam
0 %
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| Additional Information (Assessment) |
Non-assessed: a short, 1200 word analysis of a key reading, due by week 5.
Assessed: One 3500-4000 word essay asking students to explore in greater depth one of the key sociological concepts they encountered in course, and issues involved in its application to a selected topic of global social change as agreed by the student and course convener.
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| Feedback |
Not entered |
| No Exam Information |
Learning Outcomes
On completion of this course, the student will be able to:
- ¿ Students will be able to construct a sociologically informed argument, using appropriate evidence, about contemporary global complexities.
- ¿ Students should be able to demonstrate sociological understanding of the relationship between individuals, groups and social institutions cross culturally and the importance of cultural and social context, social processes, social diversity and inequality around the globe.
- ¿ Students will have the ability to analyze and discuss key social processes underpinning global social change and social stability.
- ¿ Students will be able to critically use an appropriate a range of research strategies and methods in gaining sociological knowledge of global social change.
- ¿ Students should competently set their own sociological research agenda in relation to global and international issues.
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Reading List
Chase-Dunn, C. and Grimes, P. (1995) "World-Systems Analysis", Annual Review of Sociology 21: 187-417
Collins, R. (1994) Four Sociological Traditions, Oxford: OUP.
Harvey, D. (1989) The Condition of Postmodernity. Oxford: Blackwell.
Held, D. and McGrew, A. (2003) The Global Transformations Reader, 2nd edn, Polity. Jenkins, R. (2002) Foundations of Sociology, Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan
Mann, M. (2011) Power in the 21st Century: Conversations with John A. Hall, Cambridge: Polity.
O'Byrne, D. J. and Hensby, A. (2011) Theorizing Global Studies. Basingstoke: Palgrave Nolan, P. and Lenski, G. (2004) Human Societies: An Introduction to Macrosociology, London: Paradigm Publishers.
Osterhammel, J. and N. P. Petersson (2003) Globalization: A Short History, Princeton University Press.
Sassen, S. (2007) A Sociology of Globalization, W. W. Norton
Scholte, Jan Aart (2008) "Defining Globalization", The World Economy 31(11): 1471-1502
Therborn, Göran (2000) "Globalizations: Dimensions, Historical Waves, Regional Effects, Normative Governance", International Sociology 15(2): 151-179
Thorn, H. (2007). "Social Movements, the Media and the Emergence of a Global Public Sphere", Current Sociology 55(6): 896-918
Turner, B.S. (2006) "Classical sociology and cosmopolitanism: a critical defence of the social", British Journal of Sociology 57(1) 133-151.
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Additional Information
| Graduate Attributes and Skills |
Not entered |
| Keywords | Not entered |
Contacts
| Course organiser | Dr Liliana Riga
Tel: (0131 6)51 1853
Email: l.riga@ed.ac.uk |
Course secretary | Miss Kate Ferguson
Tel: (0131 6)51 5122
Email: kate.ferguson@ed.ac.uk |
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