Postgraduate taught degree programmes

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Equality & Human Rights (MRes)

Optional Courses

Sexualities & Society

Tutor: Dr Matthew Waites
Course Type: Option
Schedule: Semester 2, Tuesdays 11-1pm

Course Description
The primary aim of the course is to introduce students to sexualities in contemporary society - Scotland and the UK, in international perspective - and their contested relationships to conceptions of 'equality' and 'human rights' and 'citizenship'.  The course will explore theoretical approaches to sexualities in sociology, drawing contrasts with biological and psychological theories, and also explore the relationship of these approaches to contemporary debates over law and policy with some reference to research in socio-legal studies, social policy and politics.  Inter-relationships between sexuality and other dimensions of inequality such as gender, 'race', class and 'age' will be analysed.

There will be a particular focus on themes including young people and childhood, the legal regulation of young people's sexual behaviours, sexuality and religion, queer theory, transgenderism, sexual violence and human rights.

Course reading

  • Weeks, Jeffrey (2010) Sexuality, third edition (London: Routledge)
  • Petchesky, Rosalind; Sonia Correa and Richard Parker (2008) Sexuality, Health and Human Rights (London: Routledge).
  • Weeks, Jeffrey; Janet Holland and Matthew Waites (eds.)(2003) Sexualities and Society: A Reader (Cambridge: Polity Press).
  • Foucault, Michel (1981) The History of Sexuality, Volume One: An Introduction (London: Penguin) 
  • Beasley, Chris (2005) Gender and Sexuality: Critical Theories, Critical Thinkers (London: Sage).
  • Butler, Judith (1990) Gender Trouble (London: Routledge).
  • Stryker, Susan and Stephen Whittle (eds.)(2006) The Transgender Studies Reader (London: Routledge)
  • Waites, Matthew (2005) The Age of Consent: Young People, Sexuality and Citizenship (Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan).
  • Warner, Michael (2000) The Trouble with Normal: Sex, Politics and the Ethics of Queer Life (Harvard: Harvard University Press)
  • Drucker, Peter (2000) Different Rainbows (London: Millivres-Prowler Group Ltd.)
  • Kollman, Kelly and Waites, Matthew (eds.)(2009) The Global Politics of LGBT Human Rights, special issue of Contemporary Politics, March 2009, Vol. 15, no.1. 
  • Journals: Sexualities; Culture, Health and Sexuality; Feminist Review; GLQ.

Racism & Modernity

Tutor: Professor Satnam Virdee
Course Type: Option
Schedule: Semester 1, Thursday 9-11am

Course Description
The primary aim of this course is to introduce students to key theories that seek to explain both the historical formation of racism and the conditions for its reproduction today.  The course will be unidisciplinary in nature drawing from history as well as social sciences like sociology and anthropology,  Through the critical analysis of a wide range of work from the historical social sciences, the course will aim to.

investigate sociological, neo-marxist and poststructuralist theories of race, ethnicity and racism
explore and evaluate theoretical and historical debates about the origins of racism
assess the strengths and weaknesses of competing theories explaining contemporary manifestations of racism

Course reading

  • Miles, R. 1993.  Racism After 'Race Relations', London: Routledge
  • Bulmer, M. and Solomos, J. (eds) 1999.  Racism, Oxford: Oxford University Press.
  • Back, L. and Solomos, J. (eds) 2000.  Theories of Race and Racism, London: Routledge.
  • Castles, S. and Miller, M.J. 1998.  The Age of Migration, London: Palgrave.

Religion in Society

Tutor: Dr Nicole Bourque
Course Type: Option
Schedule: Semester 2, Thursday 12-2pm

Course description
Religion in Society is an anthropology course.  You do not need to have any prior experience of anthropology and/or the study of religion in order to take this course.  As we explore anthropological theories of ritual and religion, we will place these developments into the wider context of how anthropological theories and research methods have changed over time.  Along with looking at major theorists such as Tylor, Fraser, Durkheim, Van Gennep, Marx, Turner, Gluckman, Geertz, Bell and Humphrey and Laidlaw, we will examine anthropological ideas about society and culture, symbolism, rituals and ritualization, gender and ethnic identity and processes of religious change, such as syncretism and conversion.  Many of these themes will be explored by looking at different religious traditions including Christianity, Islam and small scale religions by focusing on specific ethnographic case studies, such as witchcraft in Africa, syncretism in South America, and conversion to Islam in Europe and North America.  We will also explore how religion relates to social diversity and identity.

Course reading (available in the library)

  • Lambeck, M. (2002) A Reader in the Anthropology of Religion. Oxford: Blackwell.
  • Pals, Daniel L. (1996) Seven Theories of Religion. Oxford: OUP..
  • Bowie, F. (1999) The Anthropology of Religion. Abingdon: Marston.
  • Durkheim, E (1995 (first published 1912)) The Elementary Forms of the Religious Life (trans. Karen Fields). New York: Free Press
  • Geertz, C. (1975) The Interpretation of Cultures. London: Hutchinson
  • Humphrey, C and J. Laidlaw (1994) The Archetypal Actions of Ritual. Oxford: Clarendon.
  • Bell, Catherine M. (1992) Ritual Theory, Ritual Practice.  Oxford: OUP.
  • Turner, V. (1967) The Forest of Symbols. Ithaca: Cornell University Press.

Gender & Society (not running 2013/14)

Tutor: Dr Francesca Scrinzi
Course Type: Option
Schedule: Semester 2, Tuesday 9am - 11am

Course Description
The course introduces the students to the historical and theoretical roots of contemporary feminism, and explores the social construction of femininities and masculinities and their relation to differences of class and ethnicity.  It considers several issues pertinent to the study of gender inequalities such as work and migration.

More particularly, the course will address issues of gender, work and international migration, by focusing on migrant domestic workers and the international division of care work.  Drawing on theoretical and empirical studies concerning gendered migration, migrant labour and domestic service, the course deals with current debates on how racism comes to play an important role in the emerging sexual division of labour on an international scale.  The course will therefore examine the polarisation between women workers in different contemporary societies, the production of racialised femininities and masculinities within the domestic service relation, gender inequalities within power relations between the global North and South, as well as the connections between the neo-liberal restructuring of welfare state and the labour market, contemporary forms of migration and the changing patterns of the sexual division of labour.  In so doing, the course will incite the students to think inequalities as intersecting sets of social relations, that are linked to the social division of labour as well as to policies and legislation.

Course reading

  • Anderson, Bridget (2000) Doing the dirty work? The global politics of domestic labour, London: Zed Books.
  • Ehrenreich, Barbara and Hochschild, Arlie Russell (2003) Global Woman: Nannies, Maids, and Sex Workers in the New Economy, New York: Metropolitan.
  • Guillaumin, Colette (1995) Racism, Sexism, Power and Ideology, London: Routledge.
  • Kofman, Eleonore, Annie Phizacklea, et al. (2000) Gender and International Migration in Europe. Employment, Welfare and Politics, London and New York: Routledge.

The Disabling Society

Tutor: Professor Nick Watson
Course Type: Option
Schedule: Semester 1, Mondays 10-12pm

Course Description

This course is designed to give students fresh insights into the concepts associated with disablement in modern society. Disability as an equal opportunities issue is explored through the study of contemporary organisations and institutionalised practices. 

The primary aim of this course is to introduce students to the historical and theoretical roots of disablement in modern society.  It will provide a basic grounding in modern disability theory and will explore disability and disablement as an equal opportunity issue through the study of contemporary organisations and institutionalised practices.  These include education, work, access to health and healthcare, cultural representations of disabled people and the provision of social support.


Course Reading:

There is no single course textbook but much of the theoretical and empirical content of the course is surveyed in the following books. All are available for purchase from the University Bookshop and multiple copies are available in the short loan section of the Main University Library and the Adam Smith Library:

  • Albrecht G, Selman K and Bury M (2001) Handbook of Disability Studies London, Sage
  • Barnes C and Mercer G (2010) Exploring Disability: A sociological introduction Cambridge, Polity
  • Oliver M (1990) The Politics of Disablement, Houndsmill, Macmillan
  • Shakespeare T (2006) Disability Rights; Disability Wrongs London, Routledge
  • Thomas C (2007) Sociologies of Disability and Illness London, Palgrave

Class and Stratification (not running 2013/14)

Tutor: Dr Matt Dawson
Course Type: Option
Schedule: Semester 2, Monday 12-2pm

This course introduces you to classical and contemporary debates on how class is formed and how this can impact upon the stratification of societies.  Along the way we will cover some of the classical forms of class analysis and see how these were advanced by theorists during the 20th Century.  We will also assess attempts to 'measure' class (both academic and governmental) and evaluate the claim that class is 'cultural'.  From here we will delve into debates which suggest that class is of lessening sociological relevance - or, in the extreme reading, that it is 'dead' - due to either: the lessening of class identification, the increasing importance of other forms of stratification, or the 'individualized' nature of 'late modern' society.  This course concludes by considering how class may be constituted in contemporary, neoliberal and global societies, through the use of two case studies: global cities and post-devolution Scotland.

Throughout the course you will be asked to think about how the various conceptions of class you encounter may interact with other individual circumstances to impede or advance life chances.  I will encourage the use of material from other courses you may be taking/have taken, as well as your own views on these questions.

Course Reading

  • Atkinson, W. (2010) Class, Individualization and Late Modernity Hampshire: Palgrave Macmillan
  • Crompton, R. (2008) Class and Stratification (3rd Ed.) Cambridge: Polity Press
  • Roberts, K. (2011) Class in Contemporary Britain (2nd Ed.) Hampshire: Palgrave Macmillan
  • Wright, E.O. (2005) Approaches to Class Analysis Cambridge: Cambridge University Press

Neoliberal Globalisation and World Inequality since the 1970s

Tutor: Dr Neil Davidson
Course Type: Option
Schedule: Semester 2, Thursday 10-12pm

Course Description

The course explores the causes and extent of inequality between regions and nation-states, in terms of both geopolitical power and economic development, and within nation-states in terms of class differentiation.  Through an engagement with empirical data and theoretical interpretations students will develop an understanding of the relationship between these inequalities to the changes which occurred in the world capitalist system between the economic crises of 1973/4 and 2007/9 which the course treats as the era of neoliberal globalisation.

Poverty and Inequality in the Modern World

This course introduces students to the main concepts and methods in poverty research.  It combines historical and sociological approaches to consider the main development in poverty and inequality in the modern world