Cancelled Spatial sociology
Course content
A cardinal and age-old question of social science is how human behaviour and attitudes are shaped by the social environment and, vice versa, how the social environment emerges from human action. While the classical question of the interplay between individual and environment has been investigated since the origin of the social sciences, it has seen a remarkable resurgence in the last decades. Theoretical and methodological advances have allowed social scientists to revisit a number of longstanding questions. For example, how neighbourhoods or workplaces impact individuals’ social mobility, as well as their political attitudes and social behaviour. Other important contextual sources of human behaviour include spatial diffusion of cultural norms (e.g. fertility) or criminal behaviour (e.g. attacks against refugees), or media imagery (e.g. fake news) shaping people’s perceptions on contested issues.
This course introduces students to the study of context effects in a broad sense by reviewing and discussing contemporary theories and methods to study these phenomena. The course deals with a range of topics including both political attitudes on, e.g., immigration, welfare redistribution, and homosexuality, but also concrete behaviour such as fertility, collective violence, voting, or educational choices.
MA Research Methodology and Practice (MSC 2015)
Course package (MSc 2015):
Welfare, inequality and mobility
Knowledge, organisation and politics
Culture, lifestyle and everyday life
Credit students must be at master level
BA-Undergraduates from foreign countries (exchange students) can
sign up for this course
knowledge:
- Overview of theoretical literature in the area of contextual research broadly understood.
- Overview of methods used to study context effects, such as multilevel models or spatial regression.
- Overview of knowledge and recent contributions on social
phenomena with a spatial component such as attitudes, fertility,
voting, or collective violence etc.
Skills:
- Students will be able to read and comprehend advanced analyses of context effects.
- Students will be able to assess research designs and evaluate
their pitfalls and strengths.
Competences:
- Students should be able to formulate their hypotheses about how contexts affect individuals.
- Students should be able to propose research designs to test their hypotheses about context effects.
- Students should be able to conduct and write up an empirical
study.
Students should be able to give brief and concise presentations of advanced research results.
Lectures, class discussions, student presentations, a final paper that entails an empirical analysis. Students are expected to contribute actively to discussion of core theoretical-analytical tools as well as the more specific analytical examples and studies.
Readings are comprised primarily of peer-reviewed journal articles. The syllabus will consist of roughly 600-700 pages of reading.
Strong English skills and a good comprehension of quantitative research methods, especially multiple regression. All lacks of skills can be compensated by hard work and interest. This course will not introduce students to quantitative methods in a formal sense, but discuss their applications in detail.
I give structured feedback to student presentations, drafts of the final paper and to the final paper. Students get informal feedback to their ideas and arguments during class discussions. Moreover, we will systematically use student peer-feedback.
- ECTS
- 7,5 ECTS
- Type of assessment
-
PortfolioIndividual or group.
A portfolio assignment is defined as a series of short assignments during the course that address one or more set questions and feedback is offered during the course. All of the assignments are submitted together for assessment at the end of the course. The portfolio assignments must be no longer than 10 pages. For group assignments, an extra 5 pages is added per additional student. Further details for this exam form can be found in the Curriculum and in the General Guide to Examinations at KUnet. - Marking scale
- 7-point grading scale
- Censorship form
- No external censorship
Criteria for exam assessment
Please see the learning outcome
- Category
- Hours
- Lectures
- 28
- Preparation
- 148
- Exam
- 30
- English
- 206
Kursusinformation
- Language
- English
- Course number
- ASOK15643U
- ECTS
- 7,5 ECTS
- Programme level
- Full Degree Master
Full Degree Master choice
- Duration
-
1 semester
- Schedulegroup
-
See timetable
- Studyboard
- Department of Sociology, Study Council
Contracting department
- Department of Sociology
Contracting faculty
- Faculty of Social Sciences
Course Coordinator
- Mikkel Haderup Larsen (3-7c777b4f827e723d7a843d737a)
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Courseinformation of students