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Semester 2

Contemporary Issues in Sociology (SCIL10080)

Subject

Sociology

College

CAHSS

Credits

20

Normal Year Taken

3

Delivery Session Year

2023/2024

Pre-requisites

Visiting students must have completed at least 2 Social Science courses (i.e. Sociology, Politics, Social Policy, Social Anthropology, African Studies, American Studies, Gender/Queer Studies) at grade B or above. We will only consider University/College level courses.

Course Summary

This rapid response sociology course will deal with the latest social issues, focusing on current or recent events and analyzing them via a range of sociological approaches.

Course Description

The substantive content of the course will change each year depending on topical issues and will be taught by specialists in that field from amongst permanent and postdoctoral staff. For example, in the year of a general election the course could centre around political engagement and disengagement as a sociological issue. What is provided here is a framework within which different issues can be taught each year, thus maintaining a coherent learning experience via which students can be familiarized with key concepts and arguments within the discipline. This framework is likely to include considerations of why the issue is important from a sociological perspective, what classical sociology can contribute to understanding it and the historical context in which this issue has emerged. The course may also examine diverse manifestations of and responses to the issue in different societies, its different impact on different social groups and its relationship to forms of social inequality. The sociological framework of the course will allow examination of the extent to which the issue upholds social order or produces social conflict and how it is affected by processes of globalization. The course will encourage reflection on how sociology can assist in critically assessing the alternative options for addressing this issue. Such a framework is indicative, and will potentially need to be adapted depending on the specific issue being covered. The specific topic for the following year will be announced at latest by the end of semester 2 of the previous year and communicated by email (a title and blurb) to all honours students in the school. 2023-24 topic detail: Sociology of Health in Times of Pandemics. This course brings a sociological understanding of health in times of pandemics. For a long time, sociologists have been investigating health to highlight its social dimensions. They have explored how diseases are socially constructed, how health and wellbeing are unevenly distributed based on social determinants, how institutions play a role in shaping health and diseases, and how social movements for the recognition of new conditions affect medical sciences. While in the past decades sociology has focused on showing the social construction of health, the Covid-19 pandemic has fostered the opposite movement in social debates. Many recent works highlight how deeply health issues shape societies, and how health contestations (whether they are led by patients, activists, or healthcare workers) can be powerful drivers of social transformation. Recent pandemics (e.g. HIV and Covid-19) have crystallised already-existing inequalities, provoked the rise of new social movements, and led to significant political transformations in our societies. This course will explore the social aspects of pandemics and what recent pandemics have done to social sciences, especially when it comes to the articulation between society and health.

Assessment Information

Written Exam 0%, Coursework 100%, Practical Exam 0%

view the timetable and further details for this course