Why did industrialisation first occur in Europe, not China or India? How did economic growth lead to the Industrial Revolution? What impact did two world wars have on the global economy? Explore the process of economic change and development from the sixteenth-century to the present day.

What tools can you use for macroeconomic analysis? And how can these then be applied to macro-policy issues? Learn how to build alternative macroeconomic models and apply analytical reasoning. Examine real-life macroeconomic questions, on topics such as government budgets or wage-price flexibility, and critically evaluate macroeconomic policies.

How do consumers behave in a competitive market? And what about producers? How do various imperfections affect the outcome of decentralised markets? Study the fundamental concepts and methods in microeconomics. Understand the tools and methods of analysis for economic reasoning, and develop your critical approach to economic issues and policies.

In this module, you will focus on the economic history of economic growth and technical change centred on the 'second industrial revolution' and stemming from the advances in the latter part of the 19th century. Beginning with an overview of global patterns of growth to the early 21st century, you’ll be introduced to macroeconomic approaches to long-run growth, in particular accounting for technological change. You’ll focus on case studies of key sectors contributing to technical progress, including electricity, chemicals, in the late 19th century through to Information and Communications Technology in the late 20th and early 21st centuries.

This module offers you an opportunity to explore, develop and apply an interdisciplinary set of theories useful for understanding and acting within the professional and academic field of community and regional development. The module takes you through what the nature of community groups are, the structures of power in society; the function of non-profits and community organizations; the networks that tie community groups to each other; and how students can work together to make a difference at the local level engaging with these actors and networks. Four development streams are explored in depth: urban poverty and ecology, rural poverty and sustainable agriculture, food insecurity, and health and poverty. You will follow a specific stream you are interested in and go in depth into understanding both the theoretical and practical solutions and obstacles to having a positive impact on a community in this area.

This module introduces students to the field of behavioural economics which combines economic analysis with insights from psychology to understand human behaviour. This module is offered at second year undergraduate, and at third year undergraduate. While the content is the same for both levels, the learning outcomes assessed in the modules are slightly different.

Want to know more about the IMF or the Federal Reserve? Interested in the European Central Bank and the European Stability Mechanism? Examine these international financial institutions to evaluate their existence, policies and effects on the international monetary system. Understand the institutional framework within which international financial relations are organised.

Which institutions control international trade? How are they organised? What are their objectives? And why are some of their activities deemed controversial? Study the world trading system since World War Two, learning about the most important issues in international trade policy and deepening your knowledge of the global economy.

How are financial markets organised? And what role do they play in the economy? Examine the main elements in modern finance. Study the activities of financial institutions and the main financial markets. Understand the theory and practice of financial regulation, looking at recent regulatory reforms.

What mathematical methods can analyse economic problems? And what mathematical tools are needed to understand economic models? Gain an introduction to the mathematical methods commonly used in economics, build your knowledge of mathematical tools for work in economics and develop your understanding of the mathematical language used in economic literature.

Which econometric methods can analyse economic data? How do you critically assess applied economic literature? Learn how to carry out statistical and econometric calculations, plus gain experience of using the Stata software package. Demonstrate your subsequent understanding of the linear regression model with your own investigation on an empirical issue.

What economic issues do computing firms face today? What about the pharmaceutical industry? Or telecommunication organisations? How does new technological knowledge allow these firms to keep a competitive edge? Using real-life case studies, learn how economics model-building methodology helps with the challenges of managing new technology in the modern world.

How are firms organised? What impact does this have on their environment? Or their competitive strategies? Using real-life case studies, understand the economic principles behind different organisational arrangements. Apply economic analysis to address issues about decision making within different firms.

What constitutes a good piece of research? You consider the basics of scientific work and procedures in the social sciences in order to understand the philosophy and theory of social scientific investigations, and to improve your research throughout your degree.

What is a public good? Why do people pollute? What is collective action, and what forms does it take? This module provides students with theoretical and empirical insights to understand and analyse problems of collective action – i.e. situations in which members of communities need to coordinate shared interests. The module introduces the analytical concepts of collective action and presents applied local and global cases. The course also covers some of the most important questions about the aims and tools of economic policy.

Why do some people participate in politics and others do not? Why have voting rates plummeted in most democracies across the globe? What factors cause political violence? And what are the implications of inequalities in political participation for public policies? This module studies different forms of political behaviour ranging from voter turnout to terrorism. It combines micro- and macro-level perspectives and covers trends in political participation around the globe.  

Does everyone in a political party subscribe to the same core ideology? How do you pick which party to vote for? How do you persuade more people to vote? You examine party systems, party competition, electoral behaviour and party organisation in advanced liberal democracies.

How has the UK political system changed over the last 20 years? Centring on the decline of the traditional Westminster Model of democracy and its replacement by a political system in which power is more dispersed, you explore topics including devolution, Britain’s relationship with the EU, coalition government, the Human Rights Act, and the changing party system.

How can we answer political questions using statistical data? Learn how to find relevant research designs and questions in order to use quantitative methods in political research, assisting you in your other modules and improving your job prospects.

Given the rise of groups such as the Islamic State and Al-Qaeda, the focus on violent non-state actors has become more and more important. You discover why non-state actors resort to violence and crime, what tactics and strategies they use, how they fund their existence, how they undermine the state and what can be done to counter the instability they cause.

How should we approach relationships between different countries? Explore different theoretical lenses through which the world can be viewed, including bargaining theory, liberal institutional approaches, and emotion-based, psychological models of the behavior of international political actions.

How do international organisations and NGOs contribute to and/or undermine development? What challenges do they face in developing countries? How do they try to achieve their aims, and what can they do to improve? You examine the key issues which face developing countries including debt, disease, famine and inequality, and how IOs and NGOs intervene in these situations.

Understand the evolving field of conflict resolution through exploring the causes and effects of armed conflict across the world, and scrutinising the theory and practice of how this can be managed peacefully.

Our world is increasingly globalised, and modernisation has led to a partitioning of the world into so-called developed, developing, and underdeveloped countries. You consider the development of the state and its influence over a society in the wake of globalisation in relation to the non-western world.

Learn to analyse the everyday politics of Sub-Saharan Africa: what are important socio-economic drivers and trends? What historical factors drive political development in Sub-Saharan Africa today? Study a variety of issues related to elections, development, and conflict with the tools of comparative politics, to understand both ordinary and particular political dynamics on the continent.

This module will introduce you to “principles of social justice”. These principles tell us how a political community should distribute resources and opportunities between individuals and groups. The module examines competing principles of social justice by examining the work of the most important political philosophers to have defended them and also applies these principles to concrete social and political issues.

Understand how politics and social life is shaped by language and meaning. Draw out the implications of political speech, social norms, and debate for how we act and think as citizens and social beings as you explore the intimate relationship between political rhetoric, discourse and power.  

Is torture ever morally justified? Should pornography be banned? Should prostitution be legalised? Take part in the intellectual search for the moral principles that should govern how we answer these questions and others in governing public policy.

How are decisions made in the EU? What impact do states and government have on European policy, and vice versa? Gain an understanding of the relationship between the EU and its members through studying the origins of European Integration and the institutional systems of the EU.

What are the major US texts since 1850? And what problems are connected to them? Study a varied spectrum of US literature, looking at issues such as the relationship between American writing and history, American “difference” and differences within American society, nationalism and regionalism, and conflicts of race and gender.

How can texts be read and interpreted using the thinking of Marx? What about Freud or de Saussure? Or Derrida and Said? Study literature, theatre, and film using these key thinkers. Analyse their approaches both historically and institutionally, and understand the importance of theoretical and methodological material to your studies.

What are the major developments in film outside of Hollywood? Examine different regions, nations, movements and trends in international cinema. Understand styles and themes shared by certain schools of filmmakers. Analyse how films represent national/regional histories, and how these factors shape their reception as national, transnational or “world” cinema.

A century of religious, philosophical and political turmoil, the Renaissance was also the age of the great flourishing of the English stage and English verse. In this module you will study Renaissance love poetry and learn about the sonnet, court literature, and the circulation of manuscripts. You will learn about the great writers of the canon, and some less familiar figures too, such as the female writers, who appropriated literary forms conventionally associated with men, and turned them to their own ends. Moving from the focus on “love”, to the darker theme of “death”, some of the most extraordinary literature of this time is engaged with the religious turmoil and culture of martyrdom associated with the Reformation. Finally, bringing these themes together, this module also explores Renaissance innovation in the theatre, and the revenge play, in which love, desire and death are intermingled and intertwined to horrifying effect.

This module introduces the history of children's adventure stories, and explores the emergence of the multi-novel "Young Adult" genre that dominates bookshelves and literary conventions today. The module begins with the 18th century morality tale, and moves through the Victorian period of classic Children's literature, to culminate in a study of Lewis and Tolkien as founders of the modern form. The module will explore how young readerships are constructed over time, and examine trends in adventure writing for young readers. The questions "what is an adventure?" And "what is special about young audiences?" will be addressed throughout the term. In addition to thinking about the emergence of young adult literature as a genre in its own right, this module will examine the construction of narrative and voice in each text, as a means of examining the process of world-building in literary fiction.

Romantic writers valued feeling, freedom of expression and the power of the imagination. Writers we now consider establishment figures, such as William Wordsworth, John Keats and Samuel Taylor Coleridge rebelled against conventionality, both in their writing and their personal lives. Women writers pursued liberation through literature – on this module you will read works by Mary Wollstonecraft, Mary Shelley, Jane Austen, and others. Your study of poetry, prose and drama produced around the turn of the 19th century will provide you with an understanding of a relatively brief, although turbulent and complex period in our literary history. Established and new critical approaches and theories will provide a framework for your enquiries.

The representation of black lives in writing, art, politics and society bears a legacy of erasure, suppression and denial, a practice sometimes referred to by critics as "whitewashing". This legacy, undoubtedly linked to the growth of modern European imperialism in the wake of Columbus's American encounters, can often obscure the history of black people and their cultural output in different periods. From the "whitening" of Ancient Egypt--whereby it was situated within a European Mediterranean world, as opposed to an African one--to quiescence about the presence of black people in Britain prior to the Second World War, black representation in world history often featured as a kind of absence prior to the 1960s. This module aims to examine representations of black lives and cultural output over a broad range of fields, including the visual arts, literature, history and politics, and in different historical periods. It investigates what it means to be black--generally understood as a social category or construct relating to Africans and their descendants, whether Afro-Caribbean, Afro-Latin, African American or Black British--in relation to critical discourses of ethnicity, race and postcolonialism.

This module will explore, through practice and discussion, the discrete art of the short story form. You will read a diverse selection of short stories drawn from various literary and cultural traditions, both historical and contemporary, to inspire and form the writing of your own short stories, attending to the specific qualities and techniques of this literary form.

Columbus’ gateway to the Americas, the Caribbean has experienced a phenomenal mix of indigenous, African and European traditions, giving rise to an exceptionally vibrant and diversified culture. By focusing on twentieth and twenty-first century texts, you gain a deep understanding of the literatures and cultures of the Americas and of recent transatlantic exchanges, whilst reviewing some of the key texts and themes of postcolonial studies and Caribbean literature.

The Enlightenment has often been considered the age of reason, or a period in which thought overcomes earlier forms of superstition or mysticism and develops empirical, scientific modes of seeking out truth. Juxtaposed against the Dark Ages, the Enlightenment would shine a new, penetrating light over all domains of concern. While certainly a time of radical change and rigorous re-examination, this simplified picture obscures a more complicated reality. For in the effort to relegate all forms of unreason to the past, the period witnesses an intense compression of the appetites that generate something of a counter-enlightenment--something like reason's own shadow. This module focuses on how those aspects of human experience resistant to rationalization and economization and calculation emerge in and through a range of artworks in the period after the Restoration (1660) and up to and including first-generation Romanticism (1789-1800). It also puts an emphasis on works by a segment of the population not well represented in the texts typically associated with the Enlightenment: women. Thematically, we concentrate on how desire--visceral, unruly, conflicted--takes aesthetic form. We will analyse artworks in their historical context, which means against the backdrop of scientific, political, and philosophical works central to the Enlightenment.

This module offers an exploration of the extent of writing on the environment, on landscape and the natural world in a time of increasing awareness of a global climate emergency. A number of primary non-fiction and fiction texts will be selected for discussion in seminars. In addition there will be choice literatures of eco-critical writing and contemporary eco-political works such as the Peoples Manifesto for Wildlife and material by Extinction Rebellion. The course will extol the virtues of the outdoor classroom -- extending learning beyond the seminar walls to explore the nature of Wivenhoe Park and through a field trip. Students will be encouraged to extend their knowledge in multidisciplinary ways to enhance their ability to analyse and write literatures of the environment.

Want to study sociological classics? Wish to read and interpret original texts by Marx, Durkheim and Weber? Then study a selection of the contemporary writers who followed? We look at classic and modern thinkers, carrying their ideas into new contexts and inverting approaches to social understanding.

This module provides 2nd year students with the tools to put into practice what they have learned in their first year methods module(s) using computer software to analyse data, both qualitative and quantitative. With these foundational skills, students can then specialise in the spring term by choosing either qualitative (SC203) or quantitative-based (SC208) methods modules.

What methods are used in carrying out empirical sociological research? How do you critically analyse approaches to social research? And what are the skills required to undertake such research? We introduce the statistical foundations for empirical research and methods of analysis for qualitative data, building practical skills for your final-year project.

You will examine key theories and trends in criminological thought, including the historical development of criminology and some of the more recent critiques. The themes of causation, criminalisation, correction and control run throughout the theoretical perspectives and are considered alongside some specific examples of criminal activity and organisation. Examples range from the individually-experienced through the structural inequalities relevant to understanding gender, ethnicity and crime and include the global dimensions.

What is wrong with using punishment as a criminal justice institution? How is punishment a social phenomenon? What are the formal elements of punishment? And how does punishment fit into our wider social world? Study the problem of punishment in a philosophical, social and contemporary context.

With research methods rapidly changing in response to the large-scale generation of data within society, Social Science needs to ensure it is engaged with new digital methods to both benefit from them, and to shape them. In this module students will learn to combine their growing knowledge about society, social processes and research design, with powerful tools to both draw on and analyse the vast amounts and forms of new social data in a way that is With research methods rapidly changing in response to the large-scale generation of data within society, Social Science needs to ensure it is engaged with new digital methods to both benefit from them, and to shape them. In this module students will learn to combine their growing knowledge about society, social processes and research design, with powerful tools to both draw on and analyse the vast amounts and forms of new social data in a way that is critical, ethical and valuable.

How does stratification lead to inequality in education? Is there social mobility between generations? Do early life experiences influence your later choices and decisions? Examine sociological empirical research on class, gender, and racial inequalities across the life course. Engage with the evidence to formulate your own research questions and hypotheses.

Contemporary debates about climate change, concerns about the degradation of the environment, threats to biodiversity and the concomitant challenges to human health and well-being have placed the natural environment – non-human nature – at the centre of political deliberation and campaigning, both nationally and internationally. The module will explore the links between a growing consciousness of the natural environment fostered by policy makers, environmental and conservation organisations, writers, academics and the everyday feelings about and engagement with the environment by a lay public.

In the past few decades an unprecedented demographic change has taken place. For most of human history that vast majority of the world`s population lived in rural areas. Now, over half of the world's population lives in cities, and the United Nations predicts that this proportion will increase to over 70% by 2050. This development raises a fundamental challenge to ethnographic practice and anthropological theory, which has historically focused on the life ways and societies of rural areas. Increasingly anthropologists have to come to terms with highly complex urban assemblages that are, paradoxically both longstanding and deeply unstable. Cities are contested spaces. They are sites of intense social, political and economic struggles, which are waged by coalitions of actors representing a wide variety of sometimes complimentary and sometimes contradictory set of interests, with battle lines being continually drawn and redrawn in relation to a shifting social terrain. By utilising a wide range of readings and examples including both the global north and the global south, this module will ask how we are to understand these developments anthropologically.

Social Psychology is an interdisciplinary field at the intersection of Sociology and Psychology, which is concerned with the interrelations among individual, groups, and society. More specifically, it studies how individuals interact with one another, the way individuals influence social groups and vice versa, as well as the dynamics of intergroup relations. The course will provide an introduction to a number of theories and themes in sociological social psychology that link the wider social structure with individual personality and conduct. Its aim is to provide an overview of the principle theoretical approaches to social psychology and how they may be applied to the understanding of social life.

Does technology determine history? Can games teach us about power? Does software shape society? Develop a critical understanding of the role played by human-machine relationships in contemporary cultural change. Evaluate recent developments in media technologies from a sociological perspective. Develop your own blog as part of your final assessment.

What are the problems with class analysis? And how can you understand citizenship rights? Are they useful for analysing inclusion and exclusion, how do they relate to gender, and where does migration fit into the picture? Build your understanding of race, class and gender by learning more about how these concepts relate to social inequality, rights and identity.

What are the problems with class analysis? And how can you understand citizenship rights? Are they useful for analysing inclusion and exclusion, how do they relate to gender, and where does migration fit into the picture? Build your understanding of race, class and gender by learning more about how these concepts relate to social inequality, rights and identity.

This module provides a broad overview of health systems in the UK and abroad, and a discussion of public health and how medical sociology informs public health. Topics covered will include, but will not be limited to: - the design and history of the UK medical system - the role of professional organizations in medicine and how doctors are socialized into their roles - how patients experience illness, health policy and health equity, medical technology and digital health - medical advocacy and activism - mental health policy and treatment - mental illness, crime and the prison system - disability - reproductive health - alcohol and drug use - the anti-vaccination movement - STIs, HIV and AIDs - global pandemics

This module provides a broad overview of health systems in the UK and abroad, and a discussion of public health and how medical sociology informs public health. Topics covered will include, but will not be limited to: - the design and history of the UK medical system - the role of professional organizations in medicine and how doctors are socialized into their roles - how patients experience illness, health policy and health equity, medical technology and digital health - medical advocacy and activism - mental health policy and treatment - mental illness, crime and the prison system - disability - reproductive health - alcohol and drug use - the anti-vaccination movement - STIs, HIV and AIDs - global pandemics

How have lesbian and gay lives developed since the 1950s? What key films provided a visual culture for such change? And what are the recent developments in queer theory? Study the issues raised and analyse the sociologically significant developments in lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender lives.