ASOK15643U Spatial Sociology
Courses with oral exams will be held offline. If the case of Covid-19 restrictions, oral exams will be held online. You will be notified of this in Absalon no later than 4 weeks prior to the exam time – with the option of shorter deadline if Covid-19 restrictions are introduced at shorter notice.
Courses with written exams will not experience any changes in relation to the normal exam form.
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
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.
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.
Readings are comprised primarily of peer-reviewed journal articles. The syllabus will consist of roughly 600-700 pages of reading.
- Category
- Hours
- Class Instruction
- 28
- Preparation
- 148
- Exam
- 30
- Total
- 206
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.
Registration deadline for courses is:
June 1st for Autumn semester
December 1st for Spring semester.
When registered you will be signed up for exam.
Sociology- and anthropology Student:
Registration online at KUnet
International exchange students:
You must sign up by filling in an application form.
Find it at
www.sociology.ku.dk.
Credit students:
Find more information at
www.soc.ku.dk under Uddannelse
-> Meritstuderende.
- Credit
- 7,5 ECTS
- Type of assessment
- Portfolio, -Individual or group (max 4 students).
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. - Exam registration requirements
You must be registered for the course to take this exam.
- Aid
- All aids allowed
- Marking scale
- 7-point grading scale
- Censorship form
- No external censorship
- Exam period
Find more information on your study page at KUnet.
Exchange students and Danish full degree guest students please see the homepage of Sociology;
www.sociology.ku.dk under Education --> Exams- Re-exam
Written take-home essay with NEW formulated questions
Individual/group.
Criteria for exam assesment
Please see the learning outcome
Course information
- Language
- English
- Course code
- ASOK15643U
- Credit
- 7,5 ECTS
- Level
- Full Degree MasterFull Degree Master choice
- Duration
- 1 semester
- Placement
- Spring
- Schedule
- See timetable
- Course capacity
- Vejl. 40 personer
- Study board
- Department of Sociology, Study Council
Contracting department
- Department of Sociology
Contracting faculty
- Faculty of Social Sciences
Course Coordinators
- Merlin Schaeffer (4-7d75837350837f733e7b853e747b)
Lecturers
Merlin Schaeffer, e-mail: mesc@soc.ku.dk