Undergraduate Module Descriptor

POL3204: Politics through the Life Course

This module descriptor refers to the 2019/0 academic year.

Module Aims

This module aims to improve (1) your understanding of political socialisation processes over the life-course and how this interacts with social and political structures, (2) your ability to analyse empirical, quantitative data on political attitudes and behaviour especially longitudinal data, and (3) your capacity to critically evaluate the interdisciplinary research on life cycle events, identity, communication, inter-personal and social networks and political behaviour. Finally, the module aims to improve your ability to communicate thoughts and ideas through an original research report.

Intended Learning Outcomes (ILOs)
This module's assessment will evaluate your achievement of the ILOs listed here – you will see reference to these ILO numbers in the details of the assessment for this module.
On successfully completing the programme you will be able to:
Module-Specific Skills	1. Critically assess how political attitudes and behaviour develops over the life course 2. Understand and apply the key theories and approaches explaining the effects of life cycle events on political behaviour and attitudes
Discipline-Specific Skills	3. Use statistical methods to analyse data and model political life cycle effects 4. Critically evaluate political science research according to its assumptions, methods, and conclusions
Personal and Key Skills	5. Confidently select relevant data, assimilate and synthesise multiple data sources 6. Integrate political science and other relevant disciplinary research with independent statistical analysis

Module Content

Syllabus Plan

Whilst the module’s precise content may vary from year to year, it is envisaged that the syllabus will cover some or all of the following topics:

How to Study Politics through the Life Course: Key
Key Theories I: Socialisation
Key data sets I: on socialisation and examples
Key Theories II: Inter-personal communication and social networks
Key data sets II: Networks
Key Theories III: Culture & Identity
Key Theories IV: Bio-psycho-social
Early Childhood
Schooling
Key Methods: Cohort analysis
Family
Media & Culture
Key Methods II: Longitudinal analysis
Relationships
Key Methods III: Cross-national analysis
Parenthood
Career choices
Aging and retirement
Isolation and Loneliness
Health

Learning and Teaching

This table provides an overview of how your hours of study for this module are allocated:

Scheduled Learning and Teaching Activities	Guided independent study	Placement / study abroad
70	230	0

...and this table provides a more detailed breakdown of the hours allocated to various study activities:

Category	Hours of study time	Description
Scheduled Learning and Teaching Activity	40	20 x 2 hour sessions, class meeting to discuss readings, introduce material, give presentations
Scheduled Learning and Teaching Activity	30	10 x 3 hour sessions, scheduled lab times for data analysis & data presentations
Guided Independent Study	10	5 x 2 hour sessions, suggested group meetings to develop projects and presentations: 6 hours lab prep time for assignments, 4 hours writing up assignments
Guided Independent Study	220	Preparing for seminars by completing required and recommended reading, reviewing reading, preparing questions and comments for seminar discussions, finding data resources for coursework, writing scripts in R for data analysis research reports, data analysis for coursework, interpretation of data.

Online Resources

This module has online resources available via ELE (the Exeter Learning Environment).

Scholar.google.com

Sage online research methods

Youtube.com

UK Data Service

Other Learning Resources

British Household Panel Data

Understanding Society

European Social Survey