Durham University
Programme and Module Handbook
This is an archived handbook for a previous year. The current undergraduate and postgraduate handbooks can be viewed using the links above.

Undergraduate Handbook 2006-2007 (archived)

Module EDUC1191: THE DISCIPLINE OF SOCIAL SCIENCE

Department: Education

EDUC1191: THE DISCIPLINE OF SOCIAL SCIENCE

TypeLevelCreditsAvailabilityModule CapLocation
Tied 1 20 Available in 2006/2007 None. Durham

Tied To

Pre-requisites

  • None.

Corequisites

  • None.

Excluded Combinations

  • None.

Aims

  • To provide a basic introduction to the nature of the social or human sciences, to the questions of how and why they developed, what are their characteristic ways of working, what they have in common and how they differ from the natural sciences and other disciplines.

Content

  • The module is structured around an essentially historical treatment of the rise, and progressive differentiation, of those disciplines we now call the human or social sciences.
  • Topics include: the idea of progress and social science as the outcome of speculation on human perfectibility and the characteristics of a perfect social order.
  • The growth of political thought about 'states of nature' and social contracts.
  • The idea of human nature and 'man' as a social animal.
  • The relation between the growth of social science and public policy.
  • The emergence of 'The new science of political economy' and utilitarianism.
  • Marx, social science and scientific socialism.
  • The impact of Darwinism.
  • The growth of empirical social science in the C19.
  • Fact and value in the social sciences.
  • Freud and the 'hermeneutics of suspicion'.

Learning Outcomes

Subject-specific Knowledge
  • .
Subject-specific Skills
Key Skills

Modes of Teaching, Learning and Assessment and how these contribute to the learning outcomes of the module

  • .

Teaching Methods and Learning Hours

ActivityNumberFrequencyDurationTotal HoursAttendance Monitored
Lectures 22 Weekly 1 hour 22
Tutorials 11 Fortnightly 1 hour 11
Seminars 11 Fortnightly 1 hour 11
Preparation and Reading 156
Total 200

Summative Assessment

ComponentComponent WeightingElementLength/DurationElement WeightingResit Opportunity
Examination 50% two-hour written examination 100%
Essays 50% essay 1 during the year 1500 - 2000 words 50%
essay 2 during the year 1500 - 2000 words 50%

Formative Assessment

2 1500 word assignments; one in Michaelmas and Epiphany terms.

Students who do not attend monitored activities shown under Teaching Methods and Learning Hours, or who fail to complete the summative or formative assessment(s) specified above, may be subject to the Academic Progress procedures defined in the University's General Regulation V, and may be required to leave the University.