SC551-7-SP: DYNAMICS OF HOME AND WORK
Year: 2013/14
Department: Sociology
Essex credit: 20
ECTS credit: 10
Available to Study Abroad / Exchange Students: No
| Module is taught during the following terms |
| Autumn |  | Spring |  | Summer | |
Module Description
Work matters. It is important for individual well-being and identity. This course takes a global perspective to explore the nature of work, defined in its broadest sense to encompass all labour, whether conducted formally or informally, as paid employment, domestic labour, or voluntary work. It draws on a radical re-thinking of traditional understandings of work, disrupting the conventional dichotomies of work/leisure, public/private, "home"/"work", and production/reproduction. It focuses on the ways work and home are organised differently across the globe. It aims to explore the gendered processes operating in work; examine the varieties of gender division, with regard to work, in different societies, their creation and effects; and investigate the intersection of gender at work with class, ethnicity and other social divisions. It considers how work contributes to the construction of femininities and masculinities.
The course begins with theorising the temporal and spatial (re-)organisation of work in late modernity, examining the relationship between global and local divisions of labour, and the division of labour between family members. It goes on to consider key themes around global differences in the relationship between home and work: domestic work; home work; community and voluntary work; sex work and prostitution; the manifestation of global class inequalities through regimes of production and consumption; the relationship between political change and gender inequalities outcomes. In exploring these areas, we will draw on case studies from south Asia, Latin America and post-communist societies, though there is scope for students' own interests to be reflected in the programme of work.
Learning & Teaching Methods
Aims of Course
to provide students with knowledge of this specialist area of sociological concern
to familiarise students with contemporary debates about gender, home and work and with the gender dimensions of ongoing developments in the organisation of work and employment
to promote comparative analysis of developments in this field
to enhance skills of critical analysis leading to independent research
Course Structure and Work Requirements
The course is taught through a two hour seminar. Students will be expected to contribute to discussion and debate on a weekly basis and to present papers reviewing their reading and thinking.
Course Assessment
You are expected to produce one essay for this course.
Note: Please make sure you read the MA Requirements and Assessment guidelines in the MA Handbook.
Assessment
100 per cent Coursework Mark
Coursework:
You are expected to produce one essay of 4500 - 5000 words
Other details:
Please make sure you read the MA Requirements and Assessment guidelines in the MA Handbook.
Exam Duration and Period
Bibliography
- Budd, J (2011) The Thought of Work Cornell University Press
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Ehrenreich, B. and Hochschild, A. (2002) Global Women: Nannies, Maids and Sex Workers in the New Economy. Metropolitan Books, New York.
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Pettinger, L., Parry, J., Taylor, R. and Glucksmann, M. (2005) A New Sociology of Work. Blackwells.
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Richard Sennett (1998) The Corrosion of Character: the Personal Consequences of Work in the New Capitalism. NewYork, Norton.
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Wolkowitz, C. (2008) Bodies at Work
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