Sociology

This course covers the politics of immigration in Europe. Students engage with key debates and empirical findings related to public opinion on immigration, including how perceptions of cultural, economic, and security-related threats shape attitudes toward immigrants. The course explores how immigration influences voting behavior and electoral outcomes, particularly in the context of the rise of anti-immigration parties across Europe. Students investigate the causes and consequences of these parties' success, as well as the strategic responses of mainstream political actors. In addition, the course places emphasis on the experiences of immigrants themselves, including political discrimination, integration, and the pathways to political incorporation. The phenomenon of anti-immigrant violence is also addressed. Basic knowledge of quantitative research methods (multivariate regression, causal inference, and experimental design) is desirable but not required.

This course introduces students to the range and scope of social policy analysis by showing how the subject has developed over time. It covers the history and development of Irish social policy and examines how social change has influenced and has been influenced by social policy developments since the nineteenth century.

Migration is at the forefront of contemporary debates globally, and has been a centerpiece of electoral and political discourses in the Global North since the 1990s. From the so-called “migration crisis” of 2015 in Europe to the Brexit debates on keeping migrants out and to the current anti-immigrant mobilizations in Ireland, the UK, the USA, and elsewhere, migration remains a contentious issue. Often entangled with racism, discourses on migration show us how societies categorize themselves and others, and how they deal with otherness through policies and dynamics of inclusion and exclusion. In this module, students learn to disentangle the terms used in public, media, and political discourses on migration and race by using concepts and theories from the sociology of migration and race.

This course examines the housing crisis as a central social justice challenge in contemporary cities. Focusing on issues of supply, affordability, and homelessness, with particular attention to Ireland, the course explores the economic and political dynamics of housing markets and the reasons these markets often fail to meet social needs. Drawing on social scientific concepts and empirical evidence, the course analyzes how governments and societies value, regulate, and provide housing. Emphasizing housing as a fundamental human need, the course adopts a social justice perspective to critically assess current conditions and develop creative, realistic solutions aimed at building more equitable and socially just cities.

This course introduces students to social theory in medical sociology. It does this by exploring sociological factors that impinge on health status, health chances and health care. It looks at concepts of health and illness, the social context of health and illness as well as changing patterns of health and illness, and the social organization of both formal and informal health care. This also includes a critical analysis of formal Western biomedical approaches to health and health care. A number of theoretical positions are considered ranging from Functionalist, Marxist and neo-Marxist perspectives through to Postmodern, Realist and Critical Realist perspectives and the relevance of these in medicine and health care. These are applied to key substantive areas covered in the course.

This course examines different historical models for explaining the shocking rise and ultimate decline of witchcraft as a crime with dramatic social repercussions. It covers accused female and male witches of all ages and all social levels, as well as inquisitors, judges, torturers, accusers and victims. It assess the social, political, religious, legal, environmental and cultural underpinnings of witchcraft panics in locations including Germany, France, England, Scotland, Spain and Italy. It looks at European anxieties about non-European diabolical magic, and the notorious New England Salem witch trials of 1692 in North America. 

This course explores the origins and history of global citizenship and global citizenship education. We examine various approaches to global citizenship education and discuss theoretical frameworks for understanding its worldwide diffusion. The course critically investigates the Western-centered nature of global citizenship education through the concept of epistemic injustice and considers whether global citizenship education is a notion accessible only to the privileged few or whether it can function as a mechanism for equality. Finally, students review the current status and practices of global citizenship education in different countries, including South Korea. 

Emphasizing and incorporating students' needs and experiences, the course creates a critical space where they can share, debate, network, and construct viable curricula, practices, and pedagogies for the implementation of citizenship education inside and outside the school settings. 

Language Requirements: This course is taught in both Korean and English and the group discussion in both Korean and English. Group project needs to be delivered in English. Students are required to have upper intermediate and advanced levels of English fluency. 

This course examines the relationship between terror, fear, and the exercise of social and political power. It explores themes of genocide, torture, war, terrorism, and violence, analyzing the production of the abject and victims as well as the symbolism and use of the body in the exercise and experience of power. 

This course explores sociocultural, legal and political framings and debates around what constitutes drugs -licit (e.g., alcohol, caffeine) and illicit substances- (e.g., cannabis, cocaine), factors that facilitate drug availability and use in society, drug policies, policing and control, drug-related intoxication and pleasure, drug use and crime, etc., situating these and other related themes within the local and broader societal contexts. It critically examines the nature, extent and impact of drug supply and drug taking and intoxication in Irish society and internationally and how each society responds and reacts to alcohol and other drug taking and those who take legal and illegal drugs/substances.

This course examines the major concepts and methodological approaches within cultural criminology. It considers the broader contexts of crime, how powerful groups and media influence criminal justice policies, and the relationship between popular discourses and the nature of social control.