Module EDUC1191: THE DISCIPLINE OF SOCIAL SCIENCE

Department: Education

EDUC1191: THE DISCIPLINE OF SOCIAL SCIENCE

Prerequisites

• None.

Corequisites

• None.

Excluded Combination of Modules

• 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

• .

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

• .

Teaching Methods and Learning Hours

Summative Assessment

Formative Assessment:

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

■ Attendance at all activities marked with this symbol will be monitored. Students who fail to attend these activities, or to complete the summative or formative assessment specified above, will be subject to the procedures defined in the University's General Regulation V, and may be required to leave the University