Critically explore how at least one theoretical perspective studied on this module can contribute to our understanding of a social problem, issue or debate taken from your own subject-specific programme of study.
1. Identify a ‘problem, issue or debate’ that is recognisable to your subject-specific field. This doesn’t necessarily have to be something that has been extensively written about, or which you have extensively studied. It may be an issue that interests you personally, something that is apparent to you from your professional experience, or something you would like to do more research on, such as in your dissertation.
2. Choose ‘big’ social issues – the climate emergency, economic crises, inequality, white collar crime, public health, terrorism, the changing nature of childhood, the future of the welfare state – but you may also want to focus on more localised problems or debates (challenges faced by particular professional or social groups, recent trends in politics, policy, or in specific areas of social life). You may also choose an intellectual issue that is a topic of debate in academic research – such as the nature of research itself, the most appropriate methods for studying a given field of inquiry, theoretical understandings of ‘objectivity’, or the relationship between policy and evidence.
3. Identify at least one theoretical perspective, encountered on this module, which you can use to shed light on the social issue that you have chosen to discuss. You may also be able to discuss more than one perspective, and show how different perspectives offer different ways of looking at an issue. You may have encountered this theoretical perspective in your lectures, or it may have come to your attention in your programme-specific seminars. Although you are entitled to draw on theoretical perspectives that were not taught on this module, the core of your essay must be derived from the module content. If in doubt, check with the module convenor via the discussion board.
4. Put the essay title on the front cover sheet. Then when you introduce the essay (though not necessarily in your very first sentence) explain how you are going to interpret and apply the question.
5. Demonstrate that you can read, interpret and engage with the primary theoretical literature. The amount of space you devote to the theoretical literature may depend on how much has already been published on your chosen topic which has been informed by that theoretical perspective. If you are bringing something new to this area, you would expect to spend more time discussing the theory, before then thinking through its implications, or possible applications, to the area you have chosen. But if there is already a lot of research literature applying a theoretical perspective to your topic (e.g. Bourdieu and the role of the education system in the reproduction of social class), then you may find it necessary to give more space to this secondary (and applied) literature.
6. One thing to keep in mind is that many of the ‘critical perspectives’ studied on this module have grown out of theoretical traditions which were not ashamed to critique ‘society’ at a structural level, and to imagine the possibility of major social change. If you define your field of inquiry too narrowly, or your theoretical perspective too broadly, you may find it difficult to bring the two together in a convincing way. That said, you might also be able to show how the failure to deal systematically with specific social problems, or the failure of current debates to fully understand or explain their persistence, demonstrates that a grander and more ambitious way of thinking about society is required.
7. In all cases you will be expected to do further reading and research on your selected topic. The weekly lecture and discussion sessions should have introduced you to a range of different critical perspectives, and you should have begun to think and read about how those perspectives might be relevant to your subject area. You are free to draw on material you used for your presentation assessment, but you must make sure you don’t self-plagiarise (i.e. if you want to re-use the same ideas or arguments, you must reformulate them in a new way). Discussion of empirical data, which was a requirement of the written presentation, is not mandatory in this second assessment, but if you can make links between theory and evidence you will be rewarded for it. Whatever the case, make sure you also familiarise yourself with the assessment criteria (see below) that will be used to mark your essay.