Module SOC2097 for 2021/2
- Overview
- Aims and Learning Outcomes
- Module Content
- Indicative Reading List
- Assessment
Undergraduate Module Descriptor
SOC2097: Environment and Society
This module descriptor refers to the 2021/2 academic year.
Module Aims
This module explores how science, technology and society interact to determine what counts as an environmental problem. The aim of the module is to familiarize you with a wide range of environmental problems and methodologies to analyse them. An important focus will be the role of science and divergent understandings of nature in the analysis of environmental issues. You will learn how interdisciplinary approaches to controversies over environmental problems may complicate the debates and read popular media reports of environmental issues more critically. We will discuss the meanings, political uses, and abuses of uncertainties in science, the affirmations of risks and the relationships between environmental and social justice.
| On successfully completing the programme you will be able to: | |
|---|---|
| Module-Specific Skills | 1. demonstrate familiarity with different approaches to environmental problem and different roles of science. 2. discuss conflicting meanings of scientific evidence, social responsibility, uncertainty in science and politics, and critically assess the depiction of environmental problems in popular media and the relationship between social and environmental justice |
| Discipline-Specific Skills | 3. demonstrate awareness and understanding of a range of social scientific, historical, and philosophical perspectives; 4. identify the core theoretical assumptions 5. apply a range of theoretical and interpretive perspectives to the task of sociological and anthropological analysis; 6. demonstrate appreciation of the strengths, weaknesses and limitations of different and competing social scientific, historical, and philosophical perspectives. |
| Personal and Key Skills | 7. reflect on, and examine critically, taken-for-granted social, cultural and ethical assumptions, beliefs and values; 8. analyse, evaluate, and communicate, clearly and directly, a wide range of explanatory and interpretive theoretical perspectives; assess evidence, marshal facts and construct arguments |
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:
- Introduction: Nature and the Environment in Science and Technology Studies
- GM Foods
- Climate Controversies and Consensus
- Un/natural disaster
- Scientific Uncertainties and Environmental Health
- Wilderness Discourses and Social Natures
- Environment and Social Justice
- Making Species: Natives, Aliens and Endangered
- Biodiversity: Concepts, Discourses and Practices
- Experts, Laypeople and Other Animals
- BSE Crisis – a British Example of “Risk Society”
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 |
|---|---|---|
| 22 | 128 | 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 | 22 | The module will be taught a combination of lectures and seminar based discussions, meeting for two hours each week. It is essential that students complete all assigned readings before class and be prepared to discuss them in class. |
| Guided Independent study | 66 | Readings for seminars |
| Guided Independent study | 62 | Researching and writing the essay |
Online Resources
This module has online resources available via ELE (the Exeter Learning Environment).
How this Module is Assessed
In the tables below, you will see reference to 'ILO's. An ILO is an Intended Learning Outcome - see Aims and Learning Outcomes for details of the ILOs for this module.
Formative Assessment
A formative assessment is designed to give you feedback on your understanding of the module content but it will not count towards your mark for the module.
| Form of assessment | Size of the assessment (eg length / duration) | ILOs assessed | Feedback method |
|---|---|---|---|
| Participation in seminar discussions | Weekly | 1-8 | Verbal feedback |
| 4 x Reading responses | 200 words each | 1-8 | Verbal and written peer feedback |
| 4 x Feedback to responses | 200 words each | 1-8 | Verbal feedback |
Summative Assessment
A summative assessment counts towards your mark for the module. The table below tells you what percentage of your mark will come from which type of assessment.
| Coursework | Written exams | Practical exams |
|---|---|---|
| 100 | 0 | 0 |
...and this table provides further details on the summative assessments for this module.
| Form of assessment | % of credit | Size of the assessment (eg length / duration) | ILOs assessed | Feedback method |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Essay proposal/plan | 20 | 700 words | 1-8 | Written feedback |
| Research essay | 60 | 2,500 words | 1-8 | Written feedback |
| 4 x Reading responses (200 words each) | 20 | 800 words | 1-8 | Verbal and written peer feedback |
Re-assessment
Re-assessment takes place when the summative assessment has not been completed by the original deadline, and the student has been allowed to refer or defer it to a later date (this only happens following certain criteria and is always subject to exam board approval). For obvious reasons, re-assessments cannot be the same as the original assessment and so these alternatives are set. In cases where the form of assessment is the same, the content will nevertheless be different.
| Original form of assessment | Form of re-assessment | ILOs re-assessed | Timescale for re-assessment |
|---|---|---|---|
| Essay proposal/plan | Essay plan/outline (700 words) | 1-8 | August/September reassessment period |
| Research essay | Research essay (2,500 words) | 1-8 | August/September reassessment period |
| 4 x Reading responses (200 words each) | Reading responses (800 words) | 1-8 | August/September reassessment period |
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.
Yearley, Steven (2008), 'Nature and the Environment in Science and Technology Studies', in The Handbook of Science and Technology Studies, Third Edition, eds. Edward J. Hackett, et al., Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, pp. 921-47.
Jasanoff, Sheila (2005), Designs on Nature; Princeton and Oxford: Princeton University Press, Chapters 4&5.
Beck, U. (1992) Risk Society, London Sage
Gusterson, Hugh (2005), 'Decoding the Debate on 'Frankenfood'', in Making Threats: Biofears and Environmental Anxieties, eds. Betsy Hartmann, Banu Subramaniam, and Charles Zerner, Lanham, MA: Rowman and Littlefield, pp. 109-33.
Latour, Bruno (2007), 'A Plea for Earthly Sciences', keynote lecture for the annual meeting of the British Sociological Association, East London, April 2007.
Smith, Neil (2005), 'There's No Such Thing as a Natural Disaster', in Understanding Katrina: Perspectives from the Social Sciences. SSRC Forum, New York, NY: Social Science Research Council.
Murphy, Michelle (2006), Sick Building Syndrome and the Problem of Uncertainty: Environmental Politics, Technoscience, and Women Workers; Durham, NC: Duke University Press. Chapters 4 & 5.
Cronon, William (1995), 'The Trouble with Wilderness or, Getting Back to the Wrong Nature', in Uncommon Ground: Toward Reinventing Nature, ed. William Cronon, New York: W.W. Norton and Co, pp. 69 - 90.
Helmreich, Stefan (2005), 'How Scientists Think; About ‘Natives,’ for Example: A Problem of Taxonomy among Biologists of Alien Species in Hawaii', The Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute, 11 (1), pp. 107-27
Thompson, Charis (2002), ‘When Elephants Stand for Competing Philosophies of Nature: Amboseli National Park’, in Complexities. John Law and Annemarie Mol, eds. (Duke UP), pp. 166-90.
Hinchliffe, Steve (2001), 'Indeterminacy In-Decisions: Science, Policy and Politics in the BSE Crisis', Transactions of the Institute of British Geographers, 26 (2), pp. 182-204.
Adam, Barbara (1998), 'Industrial Food for Thought', in Timescapes of Modernity: The Environment & Invisible Hazards, London: Routledge, pp. 127-62.
