BASS Social Anthropology and Data Analytics / Course details

This module aims to introduce students to sociological perspectives on education and schooling. It also aims to help students explore how experiences of schooling are affected by variables such as social class, gender, race, ethnicity, sexuality and (disability). Crucially, it helps students consider how formal schooling systems shape individual and collective identities and how they reflect, reinforce, and challenge dominant societal values. 

On successful completion of this unit students will:  

(i) be able to distinguish between key sociological perspectives on educational inequalities  
and demonstrate how these may be applied to a range of contemporary educational  
concerns.  

(ii) have identified a range of topics of contemporary concern to educational sociologists and evaluate the validity of different approaches to those topics, drawing upon relevant theoretical perspectives and empirical evidence.  

(iii) be able to reflect on their own experiences of schooling in a theoretically-informed manner.  

(iv) to appreciate education's relationship to economic, political, and cultural power.  

Weekly two-hour lecture and one-hour tutorial, incorporating small group discussion of key readings focussed upon questions set by the lecturer, focused small group tasks, and  whole group interactive learning.  

Non-assessed mid-term written coursework submission (500 words) 

Assessed written end-of-semester coursework (2000 words, 100%) 

All Sociology courses include both formative feedback – which lets you know how you’re getting on and what you could do to improve – and summative feedback – which gives you a mark for your assessed work.

Apple, M.W., Ball, S.J., Gandin, L.A. (2010) The Routledge International Handbook of the Sociology of Education, New York: Routledge.  

Arnot, M. and Mac An Ghaill, M. (2006) (eds.) The RoutledgeFalmer Reader in Gender and Education, RoutledgeFalmer, London: Routledge.  

Ball, S.J. (2004) (ed.) The RoutledgeFalmer Reader in the Sociology of Education, RoutledgeFalmer, London: Routledge  

Coffey, Amanda (2001) Education and Social Change, Buckingham: Open University  
Press.  

Francis, B. and Skelton, C. (2001) (eds.) Investigating Gender: Contemporary Perspectives in Education, Buckingham: Open University Press  

Gewirtz, Sharon and Cribb, Allan (2012) Understanding Education: A Sociological Perspective, Cambridge: Polity Press.  

Reay, D. (2017) Miseducation: Inequality, Education and the Working Classes, Bristol: Policy Press. 

Taylor, E., Gillborn, D., and Ladson-Billings, G. (2015) (eds.) Foundations of Critical Race Theory in Education, London: Routledge.