Module Handbook: The Sociological Imagination – Part One
(SOC 1031A)
Semester One, 2007-08
Professor Grace Davie
g.r.c.davie@ex.ac.uk Tel. 01392 263302 Room A350
Helen Gregory (seminars)
hg210@ex.ac.uk
Module Aim
The sociological imagination is exercised through research activity. Research involves the
systematic study of selected problems. It entails the development of appropriate strategies,
the gathering, evaluation and presentation of evidence (findings) in light of appropriate
theoretical formulations and existing knowledge of the field(s) under investigation. The aim
of this module is to introduce students to the research process by looking at a range of
questions on which the sociological imagination can be brought to bear. Using outstanding
examples from the literature, this module seeks to develop the ability of students to formulate
properly sociological approaches to the key issues of class, gender, education and religion.
One section of the module will pay particular attention to America; another will look at
policy-making in the European Union.
At the same time, the module seeks to introduce students to a range of study skills, essential
for a successful degree in social science.
Intended Learning Outcomes
Module-specific skills: By the end of the module students will be familiar with key
sociological theories and concepts and will have gained experience in working out research
strategies and in the gathering, evaluation and presentation of evidence.
Discipline-specific skills: At the end of the module students will be able to evaluate
sociological arguments and methods of data collection, analysis and presentation.
Personal and key skills: Students will develop transferable skills in addressing specific
problems, in researching those problems and in the reporting of their findings in written work
and in oral presentations.
Learning/Teaching Methods
The module will be taught through a series of lectures and tutorials. Lectures will provide the
framework of the module while tutorials will allow for the detailed discussion of particular
topics and for the practice of particular skills
Assignments
Weekly reading; tutorial participation; written assignments. You will be given a separate
sheet of tutorial assignments in your first tutorial.
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Assessments
Two 2000 word projects, each of which contributes 50% to your final mark. There is no
written examination. The projects are constituted as follows:
Project One (50% of final mark, within which each of the following elements carries equal
weight): a 500 word summary of a specified chapter of an assigned text; a 500 word book
review prepared for an academic journal; a 300 word book review prepared for
Amazon.co.uk, or similar site; a 10-15 item bibliography prepared on an agreed topic.
Careful instruction about each of these tasks will be given both in lectures and in tutorials (see
below)
Due date: Tuesday 13 November 2007
Project Two (50% of final mark): one 2000 word essay. See below for further details and
suggested titles.
Due date: Thursday 17 January 2008
Penalties
School procedures on late submission of assessed work will apply. These, together with the
penalties that may be incurred are outlined in the undergraduate student handbook:
http://www.huss.ex.ac.uk/studentUG/handbook/. Please read this very carefully.
Outline Syllabus (with dates)
Class 1 (October 8)
Class 2 (October 15)
Class 3 (October 22)
Class 4 (October 29)
Introduction to the module: content, method and study skills
Thinking and working sociologically
Class and education 1
Class and education 2. Reminder about written work
Wednesday October 31: Hands on Library Tutorial (either 1.15 to 2.45 or 3.00 to 4.30).
This tutorial forms an integral part of this module.
November 5 (no class – reading Class)
Class 5 (November 12)
Class 6 (November 19)
Class 7 (November 26)
Class 8 (December 3)
Class 9 (January 7)
Class 10 (January 14)
America and American individualism 1
America and American individualism 2
Religion and modernity 1
Religion and modernity 2
Gender and the European Union 1. Reminder about written
work
Gender and the European Union 2. Conclusion and questions
Indicative Reading List
Mills, C.W. 1959. The Sociological Imagination. New York: Oxford University Press
Berger, P. 1966. Invitation to Sociology. Harmondsworth: Penguin
Bauman, Z. 1990 Thinking Sociologically. Oxford: Blackwell
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Willis, P. 1977. Learning to Labour: How Working Class Kids get Working Class Jobs.
Farnborough: Saxon House.
Bellah, R., Madsen, R., Sullivan, W.M., Swidler, A. and Tipton, S. 1985. Habits of the Heart:
Individualism and Commitment in American life. Berkeley: University of California Press.
Davie, G. Religion in Britain since 1945: Believing without Belonging. Oxford: Blackwell.
Detailed plan of work
Classes 1 and 2 Introduction to the module: Thinking and working sociologically
The introductory lectures to this module will explain its aims, content, methods of working
and its assessment.
The aim is for students to learn how to think and work sociologically, using carefully chosen
examples from the sociological literature. The texts in question have been selected from
different time periods (i.e. different post-war decades) and from different sociological
contexts.
In each pair of lectures both the text itself and the context from which it emerges will be
considered in order to illustrate the different ways in which sociologists work, their different
approaches to the discipline, and their different styles of writing. How do they understand the
‘problem’ and how do they go about solving it? More precisely: How do they grasp the
questions that need to be asked before a solution can begin to emerge?
At the same time, students will be introduced to a wide range of study skills, each of which
will be tested in a specific task, either in class or in a written assignment. These include
careful reading and note taking, bibliographical work, the use of the web and so on.
Assignments include class contributions and different genres of writing – careful instruction
will be given on how to prepare for both.
Classes 3 and 4 Thinking sociologically about class and education
Text
Willis, P. 1977. Learning to Labour: How working class kids get working class jobs.
Farnborough: Saxon House.
This book has become a classic in the sociological literature. It is, however, forty years since
it was first published. It is important to remember this when reading the text. Would the
issues raised by Willis be the same now? If not, why not?
The question that Willis asks himself is the following: ‘The difficult thing to explain about
how middle class kids get middle class jobs is why others let them. The difficult thing about
how working class kids get working class jobs is why they let themselves’ (1977: 1). How
does Willis go about finding an answer?
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Context
Willis’ text raises questions about social class, about education, about the work place and
about the complex relationships between all three. What, for example, is the relationship
between education and social mobility? Does the education system permit or restrict the
latter? What, more broadly, are the functions of education in modern societies? Are these
changing? If so, for what reasons? What happens, for example, when (some) working-class
kids don’t get jobs at all? Would the questions and/or the answers be different if attention
was paid to girls as well as boys, both now and when Willis was writing?
Additional reading
Look for other examples of ethnographical work in educational settings. How might you find
these? If you are interested in this topic (the sociology of education), visit the library at St.
Lukes.
For a very recent set of articles about educational inequalities and how these are passed on
from one generation to another, see the four contributions on ‘Education and Social
Reproduction’ in Sociology, 40/6, 2006. Ask yourself how the issues discussed in these
articles relate to those raised by Paul Willis some four decades before. Find additional
articles that contribute to this discussion.
Introducing Project One
Time will be given in this lecture to the assignments included in Project One. Begin
preparing for these in good time. Specific allocations of texts etc. will be dealt with in
tutorials, but time will be given in the lecture to book reviews: what these are, where to find
them, how to use them, and how to write them. And from now on, ensure that you know how
to reference accurately and how to create and maintain a bibliography. Be sure to ask if you
are not clear about this – it is crucial to get this right.
There are different ways of referencing. In the social sciences, the Harvard system of
referencing is the most common. See
http://www.education.ex.ac.uk/dll/studyskills/harvard_referencing.htm for details of this
system and learn to use it in all your written work.
Please note: Wednesday October 31: Hands on Library Tutorial (either 1.15 to 2.45 or
3.00 to 4.30). This tutorial forms an integral part of this module.
See the following weblink for an online tutorial just to get you started:
http://www.library.ex.ac.uk/courses/huss/soc-first/index.html
Classes 5 and 6 Thinking sociologically about American individualism
Text
Bellah, R., Madsen, R., Sullivan, W.M., Swidler, A. and Tipton, S. 1985. Habits of the Heart:
Individualism and Commitment in American life. Berkeley: University of California Press.
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The first edition of Habits of the Heart appeared in 1985. It became an immediate best-seller.
Why? What does this volume tell us about American life? How does it look in retrospect
ten/twenty years on? In answering these questions, look at the prefaces to subsequent editions
contained in your course-pack. What questions were the research team asking? What
methodologies did they adopt? Do you find their method of working convincing? Did the
reviewers of this book agree with you?
Context
American society is both similar and different to Britain. How do we describe and explain
these differences? What, for example, do ‘individualism’ and ‘commitment’ mean in an
American context? How do these ideas relate to the notion of ‘social capital’? (see preface to
1996 edition of the book). And with reference to this module in particular, how does
American/ British/ European society influence/ condition the sociological task?
A second set of questions approaches these comparisons in a different way. Is there such a
thing as modern society or should ‘society’ be referred to in the plural? What does it mean to
be modern? Why – despite its evident modernity – is American society much more religious
than its European equivalents? Religion is an important theme in Habits of the Heart: what,
for example, is ‘Sheilaism? It is here that we find a link to the next topic.
Additional reading
Putnam, R. 1995. ‘Bowling alone: America’s declining social capital’, Journal of
Democracy, 6: 65-78
Putnam, R. 2000. Bowling Alone: The Collapse and Revival of American Community. New
York: Simon and Schuster.
There are interesting studies social capital in Britain. See, for example, the ESRC research
project on ‘Social capital: developing a measure and assessing its value in social research’:
The project summary can be found on http://www.ccsr.ac.uk/research/soccap.htm. Learn how
to find the publications that are emerging from this project. Try tracking the project leaders
and find what they have published – learn to follow a trail and see where it takes you. Think
in particular about the research questions that the Manchester team sought/ are seeking to
address.
Classes 7 and 8 Thinking sociologically about religion and modernity
Text
Davie, G. Religion in Britain since 1945: Believing without Belonging. Oxford: Blackwell,
especially Chapter 10
Religion in Britain since 1945 was published in 1994 – a new edition is in preparation. What
has happened in the religious life of this country in the last fifteen years and how should these
changes be understood? What should a new edition of this book include/exclude? Should
new questions be asked in 2007? The emphasis in this lecture/chapter is on the relationship
between religion and modernity. How does this change over time? Is the relationship
different in different places? Is it different, for example, in Britain and the United States.
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Context
How do sociologists think about religion? Do they always agree with each other? This
lecture will introduce students to different views about religion in modern Britain. Why do
sociologists disagree? Who is right and who is wrong in this respect? What evidence would
you use to justify your answer to the questions raised in this lecture?
Additional reading
Davie, G. 2007. The Sociology of Religion. London: Sage, especially Chapter 5
Bruce, S. 1995. Religion in Modern Britain. Oxford: Oxford University Press
Bruce, S. 2002 God is Dead: Secularization in the West. Oxford: Blackwell
Bruce, S. 2002. ‘Praying Alone. Church-going in Britain and the Putnam thesis’, Journal of
Contemporary Religion, 17: 317-28.
Davie, G. 2002. ‘Praying Alone. Church-going in Britain and the Putnam thesis’, Journal of
Contemporary Religion, 17: 329-34.
The last two articles bring together the themes of the last two topics. They concern social
capital and religion and illustrate the different ways that sociologists have interpreted the data
in the field.
Introducing Project Two
Time will be given in this lecture to the assignments included in Project Two. Students will
be shown how to construct an essay that ‘compares and contrasts’ effectively. There is more
than one way to do this. Choose your texts in good time, and read them thoroughly. Time
will also be given to the second and third essay titles.
Classes 9 and 10 Thinking sociologically about gender and policy-making
Text
Familiarize yourself with the material on ‘Gender Equality’ in the European Union. See
http://ec.europa.eu/employment_social/gender_equality/index_en.html.
Pay particular attention to the work on ‘Gender Mainstreaming’, including the key policy
areas.. See
http://ec.europa.eu/employment_social/gender_equality/gender_mainstreaming/general_overv
iew_en.html
There is a different emphasis in these lectures, which are concerned with the application of
sociological thinking to policy making in a European context. Think carefully about each of
the terms in the following statement. ‘Gender mainstreaming is the integration of the gender
perspective into every stage of policy processes – design, implementation, monitoring and
evaluation – with a view to promoting equality between women and men.’ Why is gender
mainstreaming so important for the European Union? In what policy areas has this work been
used?
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Context
Gender is a crucial variable is sociological thinking. How is gender defined, theorized and
understood? Gathering up the threads of this module, how does gender relate to class, to
education, to generational (dis)continuities, to social capital, to religion, and to the very
different policy areas of the European Union? How do sociologists think about and research
these connections?
Additional reading
T. Rees 1998 Mainstreaming Equality in the European Union. London: Routledge
S. Walby 1990 Theorizing Patriarchy. Oxford: Blackwell
S. Walby 1997 Gender Transformations. London; Routledge
See also the website of the QUING (Quality in Gender+ Equality Policies) project, funded by
the FP6 of the European Union (http://www.quing.eu/) This project will run until 2011.
Summary and conclusion with a time for questions.
Written assignments
Project One
Complete all of the following tasks:
(a) Write a concise summary of an assigned text (500 words) – the text (a section of one the
books covered in this module) will be agreed in your tutorial group.
(b) Write two book reviews (of the same book):
- one for an academic journal (500 words)
- one for Amazon.co.uk or equivalent site (2-300 words)
The book that you review should relate to the work covered in this module, but need not be
one of the assigned texts. If in doubt, please check the title before you start.
(c) Construct a bibliography of 10-15 items on one of the topics covered in this module.
Your bibliography should include the following items: books, journal articles, at least one
newspaper article, and websites. Marks will be given for both content and accuracy in
referencing, using the Harvard system (see above).
Due date: Tuesday 13 November 2007
Project Two
Write a 2000 word essay on one of the following titles:
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1. Compare and contrast any two of the three texts covered in this module. Your answer
should pay particular attention to the ways in which their authors conceptualize their
respective research questions.
2. What can a sociologist contribute to the debate about gender-mainstreaming in the
European Union? Your answer should look carefully at how issues about gender are
conceptualized in this context and should make reference to at least two areas of policymaking.
3. ‘The sociological imagination enables us to grasp history and biography and the relations
between the two within society.’ (C. Wright Mills: 1959) Discuss with reference to at least
two of the topics covered in this module
Due date: Due date: Thursday 17 January 2008
Tutorial assignments
See separate handout
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The Sociological Imagination – Part One (SOC 1031A)
Course pack
Mills, C.W. 1959. The Sociological Imagination. New York: Oxford University Press.
- Chapter 1
Willis, P. 1977. Learning to Labour: How Working Class Kids Get Working Class Jobs.
Farnborough: Saxon House.
- Chapter 1
Bellah, R., Madsen, R., Sullivan, W.M., Swidler, A. and Tipton, S. 1985. Habits of the Heart:
Individualism and commitment in American life. Berkeley: University of California Press.
- Prefaces to 1985 edition, 1996 edition, 2007 edition
Davie, G. 1994 Religion in Britain since 1945: Believing without Belonging. Oxford:
Blackwell.
- Chapter 10
- see also the material placed on http://www.people.ex.ac.uk/grcdavie/
Davie, G. 2001 ‘The persistence of institutional religion in modern Europe’, in L. Woodhead,
P.Heelas and D. Martin, Peter Berger and the Study of Religion. London: Routledge,
2001.
Bruce, S. 2002. ‘Praying Alone. Church-going in Britain and the Putnam thesis’, Journal of
Contemporary Religion, 17: 317-28.
- see also the material placed on http://www.people.ex.ac.uk/grcdavie/
Please regard the course pack as a starting point. You should certainly read all these texts, but
on this module – as on all others – you should read as widely as possible. Wide reading is
essential to a degree in sociology.
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