University College London

This course examines different ways of defining the economy and their implications for measuring, managing, and changing it. We will engage with a range of critical theoretical perspectives, some of which suggest broad interpretations of the economy that extends beyond corporations to consider domains such as unpaid household labor and different scales of government, as well as the role of social categories such as gender and race in shaping economies. As students build up a sophisticated conceptual understanding, they explore competing explanations for geographical differences in economic activities, wealth and development, as well as the relations between places.

During the course, students attend sessions at the UCL Institute of Education (IOE) where a range of experts present their responses to the question: what is education? Students are encouraged to consider and share their responses to this and other questions, in relation to their own contexts.

This course takes students on a journey of discovery and wider understanding, when thinking about complex sustainable development challenges. The focus is on the global problems of climate change and social inequalities, as well as the societal responses to these, particularly from an economics lens. Contrary to the conventional way of teaching economics, the course pursues a tour-de-force of diverse and rich economic perspectives, rather than following standard textbooks and their typical insistence on a particular strand of economic thinking. The course is problem-oriented with special attention given to critical thinking, differing views, and practical and policy implications. The emphasis is first on observed empirics and factual trends concerning the respective sustainability provocations, before diving into the explanatory body of pluralist economics and wide range of policy actions. Moreover, the course boosts students’ creativity and imagination, engages participants, and allows for plenty of interaction. It also proposes a novel, experimental element to the teaching method by connecting economic thinking with the world of arts and culture to illustrate a point more vividly,

Contemporary political debate remains indebted to concepts and arguments developed in the history of political thought. This course explores this history by examining a select number of signal figures and movements in the history of modern Western political thought. Students engage in close, critical reading of canonical texts. Students learn how to accurately interpret and critically evaluate the arguments in those texts, and thereby learn how to deal with the legacy those arguments have left for contemporary debates.
Thinkers to be studied might range from the well-known and canonical to the lesser-known and unjustly neglected. Possible figures might include: Thomas Hobbes, Montesquieu, David Hume, Jean-Jacques Rousseau, Catharine Macaulay, Ottobah Cugoano, Olaudah Equiano, Olympe de Gouges, Mary Wollstonecraft, G. W. F. Hegel, Flora Tristan, J. S. Mill, Frederick Douglass, and Karl Marx. Possible movements to be examined include: social contract theory; natural rights theory; republicanism and civic virtue; feminism and the rights of women; socialism and the emancipation of workers; and abolitionism and the emancipation of slaves. 

Learning and learners are at the heart of education, yet they are often absent from educational studies. This course considers how ideas, theories, and policies played out in experiences of learning as well as the ways in which learning has been transformed over time. The experience of learning is connected to broader political, social, economic, and cultural changes. Students are introduced to the ways that learning has been understood and practiced in the past, the forms of learning that took place and its significance in people’s lives. Who was able to learn, and what they learnt, are closely related to changing forms of inequality. Themes include histories of school learning, higher education, learning in civil society, learning at work and in the domestic sphere. Although the course is mainly focused on the UK, there will be scope to pursue international comparisons.