Sociology

In this course students analyze key social problems such as worklessness, poverty, homelessness, and ill health, and how they have been addressed by public policy. Students examine the historical origins and evolution of the welfare state and engage with challenging debates about the government's current role in welfare.

The course provides students with an understanding of the key issues in the historical, philosophical, ethical, and sociological approaches to the study of war and the military. It develops students’ understanding of the relationship between armed forces and the societies they protect, and it engages with war as a moral problem and the tools that philosophers have created to limit its brutality and guide belligerents. It explores why, in spite of these tools, wars can descend into barbarity, crime, and genocide, making a special case study of the Holocaust in the Second World War. It looks at dynamics of protest against war and then goes on to interrogate the intellectual, economic, and financial factors that drive outcomes and shape war as a social dynamic. The term concludes with explorations of what war teaches us about human nature and the social contract, humans’ relationship with their environment and national identity.

Topics in this course include: conceptual and historical introduction to the evaluation of programs and organizations; purposes and main sources of evaluation; basics of evaluation-- phases, methodology, advantages/limitations, and uses; stakeholders, areas, and levels of evaluation; epistemology and major evaluation approaches; types of evaluation according to different criteria. 

This course looks closely at cultural representation in museums, what they display, to whom, and how. Students first gain an understanding of how museums are organized and the concerns each department faces in terms of cultural representation. Then, they embark on an exploration of the current critical issues facing museums as they represent cultures, both that of the communities in which they reside and other peoples. Nowhere are these issues more palpable than in the National Museum of Scotland, with its large, varied, and historical collection, tasked with representing Scotland's relationship to the global world for a local and global audience. Using the galleries of the National Museum as guide and case study, students examine how nine specific conversations in museology - capitalism, community, citizenship, technology, scientific norms, race, colonialism, ethnology, and memory - are constructed, negotiated, and challenged in the museum.

This course explores the interconnected spheres of paid employment, unpaid labor, and care and welfare in order to understand the politics of contested UK reforms in international and comparative perspective.

This course introduces the core aspects of the criminal justice system, including criminology (the study of the causes of crime), policing, law enforcement, criminal investigation, decisions regarding arrest and detention, prosecution, trial, criminal justice policy, due process and human rights protection, and victimology. It is designed for undergraduate students and is taught using a case-method-like approach, incorporating commonly encountered real-life cases to help students better understand the entire criminal justice system at the undergraduate level. This course is suitable for undergraduate students who are exploring career paths in the police, courts, or prosecution, or those preparing for admission to law school. The goal of this course is to examine the meaning and justification of the concept of crime and its legal effect(punishment); to encourage students to think about the process and meaning of criminal justice and what is needed for a fair criminal justice system; and to help students to formulate their own standards for what punishment is appropriate for a crime through individual cases. 

This course explores the opportunities and threats presented through cyberculture in our information society. It discusses the possibilities and limitations of improving living conditions inherent to scientific-technological development. This course analyzes the links between technology, law, philosophy, and social interests of the groups that promote and develop it. Topics include: the new information economy; human rights on the internet; expansion of beliefs, fundamentalism, and political phenomena such as populism via social networks; the new digital economy.

Recent global and national emergencies, from austerity to COVID-19 and the current cost-of-living crisis, have presented significant challenges for young people, prompting a re-examination of key questions in the sociology of youth. This course enhances students' understanding of debates, concepts, and methodologies related to youth transitions and cultures, exploring their intersection with inequalities in the fields of leisure, culture, housing, employment at the intersections of class, gender, race, disability and sexuality. It also delves into methodological research, ethical considerations, and the role of policy in shaping young people's pathways and societal perceptions. 

This course looks to advance students' knowledge and use of the English language in diverse contexts and in developing their appreciation and understanding of aspects of British culture. The course consists of language workshops which focus on intercultural communication skills, as well as English language tuition and seminars on aspects of British culture including UK politics, British business, and trade. Other areas covered include AI applications in British business, as well as practical workshops where students work on supervised self-study activities, designed to boost language learning and/or cultural awareness. For the British culture component of the course, each week is themed: London and the world stage; British history; and British arts and culture. There are weekly trips related to the theme of the week. 

This course introduce the theories and the tools that attempt to explain the emergence, trajectories, and outcomes of social movements. It covers the basic processes by which societies initiate, consolidate, transform, and change their basic institutions and social structures and provides an anatomy of reform and revolutionary social movements, especially those affecting Arab and Third World societies. It examines a variety of case studies of social movements during the 20th century and discusses some of the case studies of the recent wave of uprisings in the Arab World. The course encourages students to think critically about how social movements emerge, sustain themselves, feel, think, achieve their goals or/and decline.