Undergraduate Module Descriptor

SOC1049: Social Analysis II

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

Module Aims

You will be encouraged to develop both your own understanding of contemporary forms of social analysis and your capacity to engage critically with them, in such a way as to assess the relative relevance and usefulness of the various schools of thought for an analysis of some of key contemporary social issues and phenomena such as social order, inequalities, agency, inclusion and exclusion, marginalization, etc.  

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 Skills1. explain and illustrate different modes of social analysis and their concomitant theoretical / conceptual frameworks;
2. exhibit awareness of the historical, social and political developments influencing social analysis;
3. think about social, psychological, personal and cultural issues in a specifically sociological manner;
Discipline-Specific Skills4. reason and construct written arguments in a sociological manner;
5. use evidence, analysis and argument in a sociological manner;
6. read classic and contemporary textual material both in terms of historical situatedness and wider significance to the discipline;
Personal and Key Skills7. formulate and discuss core theoretical ideas,and discussions and apply them to various social issues; and
8. challenge 'commonsense' assumptions about individual and social reality.

Indicative Reading List

This reading list is indicative - i.e. it provides an idea of texts that may be useful to you on this module, but it is not considered to be a confirmed or compulsory reading list for this module.

General texts on contemporary social analysis:

P. Jones (2003) Introducing Social Theory 
C. Calhoun et.al. (2002) Contemporary Sociological Theory

Harrington, A. (2005) Modern Social Theory

 

Some texts by key social theorists covered in the module: 

Adorno, T.W. and Horkheimer, M. (1997) Dialectic of Enlightenment

Berger, P.L. and Luckmann, T. (1966) The Social Construction of Reality

Garfinkel, H. (1967) Studies in Ethnomethodology

Goffman, E. (1959) The Presentation of the Self in Everyday Life

Foucault, M. (1977) Discipline and Punish: The Birth of the Prison

Millett, Kate (1971) Sexual Politics

Fanon, Frantz (1986) Black Skins, White Masks

Beck, U. (1992) Risk Society

Latour, B. (2005) Reassembling the Social