Course syllabus

 

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SEMESTER 1, 2020

15 points

Lecturer

Shannon Walsh

Room 910 Human Sciences Building (201e 910)

Office Hours: Friday 12 noon - 1pm, or by appointment. 

Email: s.walsh@auckland.ac.nz

 

Course Description

This course aims to develop skills in integrating theory and methods so that students can critically engage with social problems using a sociological lens both inside and outside the university.

 

Purpose

The purpose of this course is to provide students with a critical understanding of social science research practice that will be useful for pursuing research projects both inside and outside the university. Students will be given a grounding in traditional social science methodology, as well as being introduced to methods outside the traditional canon. Students will be encouraged to reflect not only on how to approach researching the social problems that they see as most pressing in contemporary society, but to reflect on the political stakes of social science research and the role that the construction of ‘social problems’ has played in the marginalisation of particular social groups. This course will be beneficial for any student considering post-graduate research as well as those interested in using social scientific research as a weapon in contemporary social struggles.

 

Prerequisites

Prerequisite: 30 points at Stage II in Sociology or 60 points passed at Stage II from BA courses.

 

The new due dates for assessments are:

• Assessment 1 - due Wednesday 1st April, 11.59 pm (as per previous announcement)
• Assessment 2 - due Wednesday 6th May, 11.59 pm
• Assessment 3 - due Wednesday 3rd June, 11.59 pm

 

Lecture Schedule (modified for remote learning)

 

Previous lectures:

• Session 1 (6 March) What is a social problem?
• Session 2 (13 March) Origins of Western social science
• Session 3 (20 March) ‘Traditional’ research

 

Remote learning schedule:

• Week 4 (30^th March – 3^rd April) – The problem with positivism
• Week 5 (6^th April – 10^th April) – ‘Critical’ research
  • Guest researcher: Campbell Jones

Midsemester break

• Week 6 (27^th April – 1^st May) – Dialectics and research
  • Guest researcher: Anisha Sankar
• Week 7 (4^th May – 8^th May) – Ethics and ethics
• Week 8 (11^th May – 15^th May) – Discipline, division and discourse
• Week 9 (18^th May – 22^nd May) – Decolonising methodologies
  • Guest researchers: Daniel Hernandez and Simon Barber
• Week 10 (25^th May – 29^th May) – Feminist research
• Week 11 (1^st June – 5^th June) – Activist research
  • Guest researchers: Nathalie Jaques and Vanessa Cole
• Week 12 (8^th June – 12^th June) – Recap

 

Learning Outcomes

At the end of this course you should:

• Be able to demonstrate a critical understanding of social science research methods and their role in society
• Have demonstrated independent research skills, including investigating particular social problems and appropriate methodologies and writing to academic standards
• Be able to articulate how best to apply methods to the research of social problems
• Have developed an independent critical position regarding the prospects and limits of social scientific research

 

To achieve the learning objectives aims you will need to:

• Attend the weekly lecture and actively participate in posing questions and the discussion of readings
• Read the assigned readings
• Actively seek to understand all of the readings, which involves reading beyond the text and bringing questions of clarification to class
• Organise your time independently
• Plan and prepare for the test
• Plan, prepare and submit your essay on time

 

Commitment

The University of Auckland's expectation is that students spend 10 hours per week on a 15-point course, including time in class and personal study. Students should manage their academic workload and other commitments accordingly. The 10 hours of week this course attracts will be roughly broken each week into time for lectures and tutorials (3 hours), preparing for the test and researching and writing the essay (3 hours) and reading (4 hours).

 

Assessment Guide

 

This course will be assessed by the following:

1. Take home test/essay (10% of final grade; 500 words max, including references) - issued 20 March
2. Research question and literature review (20% of final grade, 1,000-1,500 words, including references) 
3. Project essay (30% of final grade, 2,000-3,000 words, including references) - 
4. Exam (40%)

 

Assessment one: Take home test/essay (10% of final grade; 500 words max, including references)

• A take home test will be issued at the end of the lecture in week 3 (Friday 20^th March).
• The test will also be made available on Canvas shortly after the lecture for those unable to be physically present in class.
• You have just under one week to complete the test, which is due at 4pm on Thursday the 26^th of March in week 4 (the day before the lecture).
• You are welcome to hand the test in early.
• Please get in touch with me immediately if for any reason you think that you cannot submit the test by 4pm on the 26^th of March.
• You must submit a hard copy of your test to the arts student assignment centre, as well upload a digital copy to Canvas for plagiarism screening.
• You are expected to include a minimum of one reference selected from the course reading list, and a maximum of three references total. Additional references can be from any reliable source, but a minimum of one of the total references must be selected from the course reading list.
• We expect the same level of quality as we would for a standard academic essay. This is why the test is ‘take-home’.
• The purpose of this assessment is to assess two of the most important skills a researcher can have: reading and writing.

 

The take home test/essay will be marked out of 10 on the following criteria:

-       Essay content / comprehension (3/10):

Here we will be looking at how well you have answered the question and whether the answer is reflective of broader course themes. If writing is a vital skill for any researcher to have, then skills in reading are equally vital (see note on reading above).

-       Writing and referencing (7/10):

Clear communication and writing to established standards are some of the most important skills a researcher can have. We will be marking your essay for readability and checking that you are referencing correctly (see note on referencing below). Any easily avoidable mistakes, such as spelling errors or incorrect referencing will cause you to lose marks quickly.

Here we are also assessing your ability to follow a research brief. Publishers, academic journals, universities, government departments, research centres, indeed any organisation that is involved in research in some way is very likely to have specific requirements for developing or submitting work. Learning to work to these is a vital skill for any researcher. This means, for example, sticking to word limits. Before completing this assessment (and the others!) read the instructions carefully.

 

Assessment two: Research question and literature review (20% of final grade, 1000 - 1500 words max, including references)

• For this assessment you are required to develop a research question and conduct a preliminary literature review on a topic (or social problem) of your choosing.
• Include your research question as the title. This does not have to be an actual question (i.e. with a ‘?’ at the end of the sentence), although it can be.
• You must include a minimum of five references and a maximum of ten. The focus here is on quality and relevance to your question. There are many ways to assess the quality of a text but the most reliable is to read it. The five to ten references you include will be the result of finding and considering a much larger number of works than those included in the submitted assessment.
• You are welcome to use this opportunity to begin research for your project essay or research proposal as long as the content of each assessment is substantially different. Don’t auto-plagiarise, this is just as bad as regular plagiarism. We will be checking for this.
• You are welcome to reference readings from this course, however you are not required to.
• Do not use section headings. The assessment should be written in essay style.

 

Assessment two will be marked out of 20 on the following criteria, evenly weighted:

- Clarity and concision of writing (10/20):

You have limited space, use it efficiently. The essay should be readable and give a good sense of the research question and its importance. Your focus should be balanced between the works cited (i.e. no single reference should dominate the others).

Correct referencing, formatting and meeting the assessment requirements (‘following the brief’, as with assessment one above).

- Quality and appropriateness of selected references to the research question (10/20):

For almost any research question you will be faced with a seemingly overwhelming amount of published work to consider. Here we assess your ability to make decisions about which works are the most appropriate to your question.

Read ‘Why do a literature review?’ in the files tab  for further guidance.

 

Assessment three: Project essay (30% of final grade, 2000-3000 words max, including references)

Write a project essay on a topic covered in this course or research proposal on any topic of your choosing. While the previous two assessments had quite specific criteria, this assessment gives you more freedom to develop a project independently. This is a chance to channel all of that learning you have done here and throughout your undergraduate studies into something that you are interested in.

In previous iterations of this course students have greatly appreciated being given this freedom. Those that plan to continue their study into honours can use it as a chance to develop a research proposal in preparation for their dissertation. This will give you the opportunity to have a highly experienced researcher look over and comment on your proposal, giving you a valuable head start in thinking about the project. More generally, it will give anyone who is interested in researching social problems a taste of thinking about larger and longer-term research projects.

Alternatively, some choose to focus on and develop their thinking about one or more of the topics covered in class. We will learn a lot on this course but we will all have further questions. How do we address the legacies of epistemic violence in the University today? What is the relation between traditional and critical research? How did Western conceptions of reason colonise Aotearoa? Throughout the course questions have come up that we are not close to answering. What do you think? Are these even the right questions?

We will also read a lot on this course and we will have further reading. This course introduces many interesting ideas and writings about society, research, knowledge, politics… Perhaps you would like to learn a little more by focusing on a particular text, idea or thinker that we have been in dialogue with. If this sounds like you, go for it.

If this is confusing or intimidating don’t worry, come talk to me and we can figure out something for you. Regardless of whether you are unsure about this, or excited about it, you are encouraged to visit me during my office hours (or make an appointment) to discuss your essay.

Keep in mind the assessment criteria for the first two assessments. These will apply (in a general sense) here.

Make sure your essay or proposal is clear, concise and readable. Referencing should be correct for the chosen style, and it should be consistent. Pay attention to detail. The essay should be carefully proofread. Include a title. Presentation here is key. No clever formatting. Use a plain 12pt font. Double-space. Images are okay, as long as they are relevant to the essay and correctly referenced. Any doubts or questions, ask me.

Do not under any circumstance auto-plagiarise work from previous assessments or courses. Turnitin is an extremely powerful tool and will pick this up. As sad as it makes me to say, I see this alot. Whatever time you think you might be saving by plagiarising is simply not worth it compared with being excluded from the university and prevented from completing your studies.

 

Exam (40% of final grade)

The exam will be two hours, closed book and worth 40% of your final grade. It will be made up of several essay questions, some referring specifically to part two of the course, and others more general. You will be required to answer two of these questions, one general and one specifically referring to part two. Further details will be offered later in the semester.

 

Referencing

Referencing should be done within established academic conventions, using either Chicago (footnotes) or APA referencing styles. Referencing is not difficult to get right and at this point in your academic career there is no excuse for improper referencing. For guidance see: http://www.cite.auckland.ac.nz/2.html

 

All essays are to be submitted in both hardcopy and to turnitin for plagiarism screening. Please include a turnitin receipt with the hardcopy of your essay. If an essay is not submitted turnitin it will not be marked and receive a 0% grade.

 

Lateness

Late essays will only be accepted if the student contacts the lecturer before the assignment is due informing them that the essay will be late and submits a medical certificate. Essays will otherwise be penalised 5% per day of lateness. Late essays will not be accepted more than one week after their due date under any circumstances.

 

Plagiarism

Plagiarism is to give the impression that the work of others is your own. In order for your assignment to be graded it must be submitted to turnitin for plagiarism screening. If you are tempted, think again, turnitin is extremely good at picking up on any form of plagiarism. Plagiarism is a form of cheating and will be treated with the utmost severity. It is better to receive zero for one piece of coursework than to be excluded from the University.

 

Readings

The set readings are a crucial component of this course and it will be impossible to pass without familiarising yourself with all of them. Supplementary readings are optional but students are strongly encouraged to read them. Readings are to be completed ahead of class. For some weeks this might involve reading chapters several times. To successfully complete the essay component of this course you are expected to perform your own independent secondary research. This should form a normal part of your weekly study routine from the beginning of the semester. Where possible I have endeavored to find shorter chapters for set readings to allow more time for this.

 

There is no set textbook for this course, however should you like to purchase a book I recommend the following title as essential reading for anyone seeking to undertake social scientific research in Aotearoa New Zealand:

 

Smith, Linda Tuhiwai (2012) Decolonizing Methodologies: Research and Indigenous Peoples, second edition, London: Zed Books

 

In addition, the following collection offers an excellent introduction to social science research methodology and is available from the library:

 

Tolich, Martin and Carl Davidson (2018) Social Science Research in New Zealand: An Introduction, Auckland: Auckland University Press

 

Reading List

 

Part One: Traditional and Critical Research

 

Week One: What is a social problem?

Smith, Linda Tuhiwai (2012) ‘Research Through Imperial Eyes’ in Decolonizing Methodologies: Research and Indigenous Peoples. 2nd ed., London: Zed Books, pp. 44-60.

Horkheimer, Max (1937/1972) ‘Traditional and Critical Theory’ in Critical Theory: Selected Essays, trans. Matthew J. O’Connell, New York: Continuum, pp. 188-243.

Read the course assessment guide carefully.

*Third-Hours/Tutorials will run from week two.*

 

Week Two: Origins of Western social science

Kant, Immanuel (1784/1996) ‘An Answer to the Question: What is enlightenment?’ in What is Enlightenment?: Eighteenth Century Answers and Twentieth Century Questions, translated by James Schmidt, Berkeley: University of California Press, pp. 58-64.

Foucault, Michael (1984) ‘What is enlightenment?’in The Foucault Reader, ed. Paul Rabinow, trans. Catherine Porter, New York: Pantheon Books, pp. 32–50.

Supplementary

Wood, Ellen Meiksins (2017) ‘Introduction’ in The Origin of Capitalism: A Longer View, London: Verso, pp. 1-8.

 

Week Three: ‘Traditional’ research

Durkheim, Emile (1895/1982) ‘Rules for the Observation of Social Facts’ in The Rules of Sociological Method, trans. W.D. Halls. New York: The Free Press, pp. 60-84.

Horkheimer, Max (1937/1972) ‘Traditional and Critical Theory’ in Critical Theory: Selected Essays, trans. Matthew J. O’Connell, New York: Continuum, pp. 188-243.

Supplementary

Tolich, Martin and Carl Davidson (2018) ‘Research Design’ in Social Science Research in New Zealand: An Introduction, Tolich, Martin and Carl Davidson (eds.) Auckland: Auckland University Press, pp. 109-123.

*Take home test issued. Due 4pm, 24th March.*

Week Four: The problem with positivism

Popper, Karl (1976) ‘The Logic of the Social Sciences’ in The Positivist Dispute in German Sociology, trans. Glyn Adey and David Frisby, London: Heinemann, pp. 87-104.

Adorno, Theodor (1976/2000) ‘Sociology and Empirical Research’ in The Adorno Reader, ed. Brian O’Conner, Oxford: Blackwell, pp. 174-191.

 

Week Five: Critical research

Guest researcher: Campbell Jones

Jones, Campbell (2018) ‘Where Thought is Not’ in Badiou and his Interlocutors, ed. A.J Bartlett and Justin Clemens, London: Bloomsbury, pp. 177- 191.           

Marx, Karl (1867/1976) ‘Preface to the first edition’ in Capital Volume One, trans. Ben Fowkes. London: Penguin, pp. 89-93.

Murray, Patrick (1988) ‘Why Did Marx Write so Little on Method?’ in Marx’s Theory of Scientific Knowledge, New Jersey: Humanities Press International, pp.109-113.

 

Week Six: Dialectics and research 

Guest researcher: Anisha Sankar

Sankar, Anisha (2019) ‘radical dialectics in benjamin and fanon: on recognition and rupture’, Parrhesia, 30, pp. 120-136.

Marx, Karl (1867/1976) ‘Postface to the second edition’ in Capital Volume One, trans. Ben Fowkes. London: Penguin, pp. 94-103.

Plato, (1997) ‘Hipparchus’ in Plato: Complete Works, ed. John M. Cooper, Indianapolis: Hackett, pp. 609-617.

Supplementary

Backhaus, Hans-George (1980) ‘On the Dialectics of the Value-Form’, Thesis Eleven, 1(1), pp. 99–120.

McNally, David (2017) ‘Intersections and Dialectics: Critical Reconstructions in Social Reproduction Theory’, in Social Reproduction Theory: Remapping Class, Recentering Oppression, ed. Tithi Bhattacharya. London: Pluto, pp. 94-111.

 

*Midterm break*

 

Part Two: Power/Knowledge

 

Week Seven: Ethics and ethics

MacDonald. Lindsey (2018) ‘Politics and Ethics: Ethical Research Following the Canterbury Earthquakes’ in Social Science Research in New Zealand: An Introduction, Tolich, Martin and Carl Davidson (eds.) Auckland: Auckland University Press, pp. 87-108.

University of Auckland Human Participants Ethics Committee (2016) ‘Guiding Principles for Conducting Research with Human Participants’, pp. 1-31, Accessed 23 January, https://cdn.auckland.ac.nz/assets/auckland/research/research-and-impact/about-our-research/human-ethics/uahpec/uahpec-guiding-principles-2016.pdf

 

Week Eight: Discipline, division and discourse

Foucault, Michel (1977/2000) ‘Truth and Power’, in Power: Essential Works of Foucault 1954-1984, ed. James D. Faubion, trans. Robert Hurley. New York: New Press, pp. 111-133.

Rancière, Jacques (2006) ‘Thinking Between Disciplines: An Aesthetics of Knowledge’, trans. Jon Roffe, Parrhesia, 1, pp. 1-12.

Federici, Silvia (2014) ‘Introduction’, in Caliban and the Witch: Women, The Body and Primitive Accumulation, Brooklyn: Autonomedia, pp. 11-19.

 

Week Nine: Decolonising methodologies

Guest researchers: Simon Barber and Daniel Hernandez

Dotson, Kristie (2011) ‘Tracking Epistemic Violence, Tracking Practices of Silencing’, Hypatia, 26 (2), pp. 236-257.

Smith, Linda Tuhiwai (2012) ‘Colonising Knowledges’ in Decolonizing Methodologies: Research and Indigenous Peoples. 2nd ed., London: Zed Books, pp. 61-80.

Gordon, Lewis (2014) ‘Disciplinary Decadence and the Decolonisation of Knowledge’ Africa Development, 39 (1), pp. 81-92.

Supplementary

Spivak, Gayatri Chakravorti (1988) ‘Can the Subaltern Speak?’, in Marxism and the Interpretation of Culture, eds. Cary Nelson and Lawrence Grossberg, Urbana: University of Illinois Press, pp. 271-313.

 

 Week Ten: Feminist research

Donna Haraway (1988) ‘Situated Knowledges: The Science Question in Feminism and the Privilege of Partial Perspective’, Feminist Studies, 14 (3), pp. 575-599.

Ahmed, Sara (2017) ‘Feminism is sensational’, in Living a Feminist Life, Durham: Duke University Press, pp. 21-42.

Harding, Sandra (1987) ‘Introduction: Is there a feminist method?’ in Feminism and Methodology: Social Science Issues, Bloomington: Indiana University Press, pp. 1-14.

Supplementary

Mezzadri, Alessandra (2019) ‘On the value of social reproduction’, Radical Philosophy, 2.04 (Spring 2019). Accessed 22 Jan, 2020: https://www.radicalphilosophy.com/article/on-the-value-of-social-reproduction

Grosz, Elizabeth (1993) ‘Bodies and Knowledges: Feminism and the Crisis of Reason’ in Feminist Epistemologies, Linda Alcoff and Elizabeth Potter (eds.), New York: Routledge, pp. 187-215.

 

Week Eleven: Activist research

Guest researchers: Vanessa Cole and Nathalie Jaques

Harney, Stefano & Fred Moten (2013) ‘The University and the Undercommons’, in The Undercommons: Fugitive Planning and Black Study, Wivenhoe: Minor Compositions, pp. 22-43.

More to be announced closer to lecture

 

Week Twelve: Recap and exam prep

No set reading, exam prep