Postgraduate Course: Gender, Crime and Deviancy: Scotland and England c. 1860-1960 (PGHC11598)
Course Outline
| School | School of History, Classics and Archaeology |
College | College of Arts, Humanities and Social Sciences |
| Credit level (Normal year taken) | SCQF Level 11 (Postgraduate) |
Availability | Available to all students |
| SCQF Credits | 20 |
ECTS Credits | 10 |
| Summary | The course aims to examine the ways in which ideas about gender, sexuality and citizenship informed definitions of criminality and deviancy in Scotland and England in the late-nineteenth and twentieth centuries. It explores a set of key debates concerning the nature of regulation in the modern state as well as focusing on specific examples - the policing of juvenile delinquency, homosexuality and prostitution - in order to examine the relationship between expert opinion, popular culture, social policy and social action. A range of textual and visual artefacts are examined - including film, photography, fiction, autobiography and the popular press - to consider the significance of criminal narratives in the shaping of gendered, sexual and national identities. |
| Course description |
Since the emergence of a specific 'social history of crime' in the 1960s, historians have argued that study of the regulation of marginal, deviant and criminal behaviours is central to our understanding of modern societies. An earlier interest in class as a category of analysis has been joined by work on gender, sexuality, age and ethnicity as markers of social identity. Similarly, quantitative research on patterns of prosecution has been complemented by studies that examine the representation of criminal and deviant behaviour within both popular culture and expert discourse. Thus the historical study of criminality provides a rich subject area through which a range of theoretical and methodological debates may be explored. This course examines the gendering of offending behaviour, penal policy, surveillance strategies and popular representations of criminality in Scotland and England c. 1860-1960. The study will be contextualised in relation to state concerns about national strength and citizenship as well as a dominant belief in penal-welfarism. Whilst focusing on the study of Scotland and England (and therefore acknowledging the differing legal systems of Scotland and England/Wales) the course may also draw on comparative studies of Europe and North America.
Content note: The study of History inevitably involves the study of difficult topics that we encourage students to approach in a respectful, scholarly, and sensitive manner. Nevertheless, we remain conscious that some students may wish to prepare themselves for the discussion of difficult topics. In particular, the course organiser has outlined that the following topics may be discussed in this course, whether in class or through required or recommended primary and secondary sources: crime, violence (including gender-based), policing, punishment, sexuality. While this list indicates sensitive topics students are likely to encounter, it is not exhaustive because course organisers cannot entirely predict the directions discussions may take in tutorials or seminars, or through the wider reading that students may conduct for the course.
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Information for Visiting Students
| Pre-requisites | None |
| High Demand Course? |
Yes |
Course Delivery Information
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| Academic year 2024/25, Available to all students (SV1)
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Quota: 0 |
| Course Start |
Semester 1 |
Timetable |
Timetable |
| Learning and Teaching activities (Further Info) |
Total Hours:
200
(
Seminar/Tutorial Hours 22,
Programme Level Learning and Teaching Hours 4,
Directed Learning and Independent Learning Hours
174 )
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| Assessment (Further Info) |
Written Exam
0 %,
Coursework
100 %,
Practical Exam
0 %
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| Additional Information (Assessment) |
Coursework:
1000 word essay plan (10%)
4000 word essay (90%) |
| Feedback |
Students will receive feedback on their coursework, and will have the opportunity to discuss that feedback further with the Course Organiser during their published office hours for this course or by appointment. |
| No Exam Information |
Learning Outcomes
On completion of this course, the student will be able to:
- Have advanced knowledge of continuity and change (including key trends and patterns) in the development of criminal justice, the law and social regulation 1860-1960
- Have advanced understanding of theories, concepts and historiographical debates relating to gender, crime and social regulation; and ability to apply and discuss them in relation to specific themes/topic areas
- Be familiar with a range of primary sources relating to the broad subject area (including visual materials)
- Design an essay question and to identify a particular problematic emerging from guided reading
- Have enhanced discussion and oral presentational skills
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Reading List
Barton, A. (2005) Fragile Moralities and Dangerous Sexualities. Two centuries of semi-penal institutionalisation for women (Aldershot, Ashgate)
Davidson, R. and G. Davis (2004), '"A Field for Private Members": The Wolfenden Committee and Scottish Homosexual Law Reform, 1950-67', Twentieth Century British History, 15, 174-201
Davies, A. (1998) 'Street Gangs, Crime and Policing in Glasgow in the 1930s: the Case of the Beehive Boys', Social History 23, 3, pp. 251-267
Emsley C. (2005) Hard Men: Violence in England since 1750 (London, Hambledon)
Jackson, L.A. et al. (2020) Police and Community in Twentieth-Century Scotland (Edinburgh, Edinburgh University Press).
Jackson, L.A. and D'Cruze, S. (2009) Women, Crime and Justice in England Since 1660 (Basingstoke, Palgrave)
Knox, W.J., and A. McKinlay (2010), 'Crime, Protest and Policing in Nineteenth-Century Scotland', in T. Griffiths and G. Morton (eds), A History of Everyday Life in Scotland 1800-1900 (Edinburgh, Edinburgh University Press).
Turner, J., H. Johnston and M. Pluskota eds. (2024) Policing Women. Histories in the Western World, 1800-1950 (Abingdon: Routledge)
Settle, L. (2016) Sex for Sale in Scotland: Prostitution in Edinburgh and Glasgow, 1900-1939 (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press).
Walkowitz, J. (1992) City of Dreadful Delight. Narratives of Sexual Danger in Late-Victorian London (London, Virago)
Whitlock, T. (2005) Crime, Gender and Consumer Culture in Nineteenth-Century England (Aldershot, Ashgate.
Wiener, M.J. (2004) Men of Blood. Violence, Manliness and Criminal Justice in Victorian England. (Cambridge, CUP) |
Additional Information
| Graduate Attributes and Skills |
understanding of the regulation of offending and deviant behaviour in modern Britain
knowledge of the significance of gender in the shaping of mentalities, representations and experiences
ability to engage critically in debate, identify significant historical questions and synthesise and review a range of arguments
skills in interrogating primary sources
skills in using concepts and theoretical frameworks as tools of analysis |
| Keywords | Gender Crime Deviancy |
Contacts
| Course organiser | Prof Louise Jackson
Tel: (0131 6)50 3837
Email: Louise.Jackson@ed.ac.uk |
Course secretary | Miss Katherine Perry
Tel:
Email: kperry2@ed.ac.uk |
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