The Structure of Social Theory - SIMP58

Overview

About the course

In contrast to courses that teach theory only from the perspective of given scholars, themes, and contecnt, this course aims to demystify theory-driven research by making the practical knowledge of meta-theory explicit. The student will thereby acquire the practical tools to understand and evaluate theories, which will enable them ultimately to better use, build, critique, and adapt theory.

The course highlights a.) concepts and their relationships as the building blocks of theory and teaches the student how to identify these as well as b.) the levels of analysis (e.g. micro, mes, or macro) and c.) functions and their corresponding levels of abstraction of theories (e.g. 'middle-range' 'critical,' or 'grand' theories). Each week will introduce one of these 'building blocks' of theory structure and illustrate how these blocks work in the context of an example topic area of social theorizing. The student will then learn to directly apply these in the understanding and critiquing of a specified body of theoretical content. The course will culminate with the student simultaneously using all of these 'building blocks' within their critical reviews of selected theories.

Online course platform

This course uses Canvas as the online course platform. The course platform will be opened two weeks before the course begins to all students who were accepted. Here you will be able to access literature, assignments, announcements, as well as participate in discussions and communicate with teachers. 

Schedule

The course schedule can be found under the course information on the right. Please note that the final version of the schedule will be made available four weeks before the course begins, and changes may occur until that point. A more detailed schedule will be available on the course platform on Canvas.