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2011/2 Provisional Module Catalogue - UNDER CONSTRUCTION & SUBJECT TO CHANGE
 Module Code: SOC3039 Module Title: WORK AND WORKERS IN THE 21ST CENTURY
Module Provider: Sociology Short Name: SOC3039
Level: HE3 Module Co-ordinator: COHEN RL Dr (Sociology)
Number of credits: 15 Number of ECTS credits: 7.5
 
Module Availability
Semester 2
Assessment Pattern

Unit(s) of Assessment

 
Weighting Towards Module Mark( %)

 

Preparatory exercise 1

 

10%

 

Preparatory exercise 2

 

10%

 

Project (3000 words)

 

80%

 

Qualifying Condition(s) 

 

A weighted aggregate mark of 40% is required to pass the module.

 
Module Overview
The aim of this module is to consider the ways in which work and our understandings of it are changing. It will allow students to reflect on their own experiences of work (whether this comes from a placement year, weekend, evening or holiday jobs, other full-time employment, or from experiences as customers/clients), while introducing them to key sociological arguments and theoretical developments.
Prerequisites/Co-requisites
None
Module Aims

·         To provide an overview of the role and significance of work in contemporary society and of the intersection of work with other aspects of the social world

 

·         To elucidate and differentiate between different type of work and different approaches to researching work and employment

 

  • To become familiar with a range of theoretical and empirical studies relating to work and workers
Learning Outcomes

By the end of this module students should:

 

·         Have a critical understanding of contemporary work and employment

 

·         See the ways in which work is embedded within and also influences other aspects of the social world

 

·         Be able to apply this understanding to explain the conditions and experiences of specific workers

 

·         Be able to draw upon a range of substantive material to produce a project

 

  • Develop the ability to ask critical questions about everyday practices and choices
Module Content

·         Emotional labour, aesthetic labour and body labour

 

·         Temporary work, sub-contractual work, self-employment, mobile work and homeworking

 

·         Work-life boundaries

 

·         International division of labour and labour migration

 

·         Labour market inequalities and workplace discrimination

 

·         Voluntary work, informal work and illegal work

 

  • Resistance – trade unions, workers’ centres and other forms of social and industrial action
Methods of Teaching/Learning

11 lectures and 11 seminars

 

Weekly reading and seminar preparation

 

ULearn contributions

 

Exploration and/or production of visual images of work

 

Exploration of existing data on work

 

Individual projects
Selected Texts/Journals

Anderson, B. (2000) Doing the dirty work? The Global Politics of Domestic Labour. Zed books: London

 

Barley, S.R. and Kunda, G. (2004) Gurus, Hired Guns, and Warm Bodies: Internet Experts in a Knowledge Economy. Princeton University Press: Princeton

 

Bourgois, P. (2002) In Search of Respect: Selling Crack in el barrio. Cambridge University Press

 

Felstead, A., Jewson, N. and Walters, S. (2005) Changing Places of Work. Palgrave: Basingstoke.

 

Hochschild, A. (2003) The Managed Heart: Commercialisation of Human Feeling: 20th Anniversary edition University of California Press: Berkeley

 

Pettinger, L., Parry, J., Taylor, R. and Glucksmann, M. (2006) A New Sociology of Work. Wiley-Blackwell: Oxford

 

Rubery, J. and Grimshaw, D. (2003) The Organisation of Employment: An International Perspective. Palgrave Macmillan

 

Wolkowitz, C. (2006) Bodies at Work. Sage: London
Last Updated
April 2011