Module EDUC3081: NEW DIRECTIONS IN SOCIAL SCIENCE

Department: Education

EDUC3081: NEW DIRECTIONS IN SOCIAL SCIENCE

Prerequisites

• None.

Corequisites

• None.

Excluded Combination of Modules

• None.

Aims

• To give students a good understanding of recent trends in reconceptualising the social sciences against a background of contemporary changes in society.
• To this end it attempts to delineate and assess the impact on the social sciences of recent movements, such as postmodernism and post-structuralism.

Content

• This module attempts to delineate and assess the impact on the social sciences of recent movements, such as postmodernism and post-structuralism.
• In brief, those movements include: a heightened awareness of the ways that power is implicated in knowledge.
• the rejection of the 'sovereign subject' , with its impact on notions held to be central to the social sciences, eg rationality and autonomy.
• the challenge to the idea that 'truth' consists in a correspondence to 'reality'.
• the foregrounding of language, with the concomitant emphasis on 'textuality'.
• the radical version of relativism sometimes held to be implied by postmodernism.
• sceptiscm towards linear theories of development and associated conceptions of 'progress'.
• the challenge to Enlightenment-derived ideas of liberty and equality.
• the replacement of the ideal of 'knowledge' by that of 'conversation'.
• 'Incredulity' towards 'grand narratives'.
• These themes, foreshadowed to some extent in the second year module, Philosophy of Social Science, will be explored with respect to specific social science topics and subjects, and their implications for the future development of the discipline and for research, explored.

Learning Outcomes

• Students will have increased their understanding of recent work in the theory of social science;
• Increased their understanding of the forces shaping the contemporary world;
• Acquired a more sophisticated understanding of key social science terms, e.g. postmodernism, poststructuralism, deconstruction.

• Students are expected to have further thought through and developed their own stance as a social scientist.

• Students are expected to have further improved their skills in discussion and argument.

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

• Students are taught by weekly lectures and fortnightly seminars. The seminar is particularly signigicant in enabling students to acquire the subject-specific knowledge.
• Students are expected to have further improved their skills in discussion and argument and the seminars are particularly helpful in encouraging student to question whether it makes sense to think in terms of such skills at all.
• Success in applying these modes of thinking is attested by the annual evaluation.

Teaching Methods and Learning Hours

Summative Assessment

Formative Assessment:

One essay during the first term (2000 words max)

■ 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