Core modules
Gender, Imperialism and International Development
This module fosters comprehensive, critical and advanced knowledge of theoretical approaches to gender and development. The first part of the module locates gender and development within a history of colonialism, imperialism and orientalism, asking how gender relations have shaped and been shaped by colonialism; how contemporary forms of western imperialism invoke ideas about gender; and how far western feminism has been able to resist orientalist ideas about a ‘modern’ west and a ‘backward’ east. It also looks critically at some measures of gendered development today, including the Millennium Development Goals and the replacement Sustainable Development Goals. The second half explores key theories of development - modernisation theory, dependency theory, environmentalism, and post-development thinking - and how they have been gendered. It also considers approaches to gender and development based around the concepts of human rights, capabilities and justice, before returning to the original questions: what constitutes development, and what are the implications of a gendered approach to it.
Gender Analysis and Development Practice
This module explores gender in development practice. It casts light on processes of mobilisation and social change aimed at promoting and achieving greater equity and well-being for people in ‘developing’ parts of the world. Therefore, it considers development policy approaches through which historically excluded groups (located at the intersections of gender, race, class, sexuality) are given the tools to claim rights, recognition and cultural, political and economic resources. It enquires to what extent development policies, programmes and projects in the Global South integrate gendered perspectives to identify and then erase disparities in the distribution of resources, opportunities, constraints and power. Does a gender analytical approach, accepted and employed by numerous international development agencies, allow for practice which addresses gender inequalities in an intersectional way.
Dissertation (Year One full-time and Year Two part-time)
The dissertation module gives you the opportunity to complete an independent piece of research on a topic of your own choice with the support of your dissertation supervisor, plenary teaching, and other online resources. The aim is for you to creatively use the substantive and methodological training acquired in the earlier part of your course to critically analyse a research topic of sociological relevance.
Optional modules
You can take four optional modules, at least one from List (A) and one from List (B). Further modules can be taken from any list but no more than one outside option can normally be taken, from the list of Recommended Outside Options (List D) or, by agreement with the Course Convenor, one module offered by another Department or Centre within the Faculty of Social Sciences.
List A
- Decolonising Ecology: Race, Coloniality and the Climate Crisis
- Feminist and Queer Thinking: Contemporary Challenges
- Feminist Theories and Epistemologies: Debates and Dilemmas
- Indigenous and Global South Feminisms
- Market Life: Wealth and Poverty in Global Capitalism
- Postcolonial Theory and Politics
- Religion and the Planetary Crises
- Reproductive Justice
- Researching Inequality: Race, Class, and Gender in Global Perspective
- Sexualities
- Social Research for Social Change
- Transnational Media Ecologies
List B
- Archival Encounters
- Creative Research Methods
- Qualitative Methods in Social Research
- Quantitative Methods in Social Research
- Understanding Social Science
List C
- Big Data: Hype or Revolution
- Ethnography and the Anthropological Tradition
- Critical Readings in Social Theory
- Key Problems in Criminal Justice
- Mastering Complex Real-World Data
- Queering Sociology
- Social Data Science
- Sociology of End Times
- State of the Art of Sociology
List D
- Women’s Human Rights and Global Justice
Read more about our core and optional modules on the Sociology website.Link opens in a new window
