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2010/1 Module Catalogue
 Module Code: SOC3021 Module Title: CRITICAL ISSUES IN SOCIOLOGY
Module Provider: Sociology Short Name: SOC3021
Level: HE3 Module Co-ordinator: COOPER G Dr (Sociology)
Number of credits: 10 Number of ECTS credits: 5
 
Module Availability

Semester 1
Assessment Pattern

One 2000 word essay (50%), one 2000 word written exercise (50%)
Module Overview
Prerequisites/Co-requisites
Module Aims

This module is designed to give students an opportunity to learn about new developments within sociology and social theory, with particular emphasis on the discipline’s role within, and contribution to, wider social and political contexts. In addition to introducing and assessing the significance of new developments, it provides an opportunity to contextualise and reflect upon what has been learnt on other modules.

 

 
Learning Outcomes

Having completed this part of the module, students should:

 

 

• have a sense of the place and role of sociological work within society today

 

 

• appreciate the possibilities, and limitations, of a sociological approach

 

 

• understand the relationship of sociological to other forms of explanation

 

 

• understand some key recent developments within social theory

 

 

• be able to evaluate critically the question of how far historical developments

 

 

necessitate new sociological approaches

 

 
Module Content

Contextualizing sociological explanations in everyday life and the contemporary world; relating sociological frameworks and approaches to other disciplines; the contributions of contemporary sociology to politics and policy; recent developments in sociological theory, and their relation to classical sociology; changing conceptions of the social; debates about critical sociology.

 

 
Methods of Teaching/Learning
Lectures
Selected Texts/Journals

Boltanski, L and Thevenot, L (1999) The sociology of critical capacity, European Journal  of Social Theory 2(3) 379-96

 

Candlin, F and Guins, R (eds) The Object Reader, Routledge

 

Clawson, D et al (eds) (2007) Public Sociology, University of California Press

 

Cooper, G et al (eds) Sociological Objects, Ashgate

 

Fuller, S (2006) The New Sociological Imagination, Sage

 

Gane, N (ed) (2004), The Future of Social Theory, Continuum

 

Latour (2005) Reassembling the Social, Oxford University Press

 

Marshall, B and Witz, A (eds) (2007) Engendering the Social, McGraw-Hill

 

Outhwaite, W (2006) The Future of Society, Blackwell

 

 
Last Updated
September 2010