Overview
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Academic contacts
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Offerings
MURDOCH-S1-EXT-2018-2019
MURDOCH-S1-INT-2018-2019
Enrolment rules
Enrolment in BA Honours - Honours in Sustainable Development or Politics and International Studies.
Other learning activities
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Learning activities
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Learning outcomes
1.
To understand the way that important words (key concepts) are used differently by different researchers engaged in research in the social sciences
2.
To apply this understanding to two (alternative uses) of a word (concept) relevant to the student’s thesis project.
3.
To understand the differences in practices among those who undertake research within a discipline and sub-discipline.
4.
To lead a seminar that examines the practices within a particular discipline roo sub-discipline of the social sciences.
5.
To apply this understanding in a characterisation of the way that scholars within two disciplines or sub-disciplines would student an event relevant to the student’s thesis project.
Assessments
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Additional information
Unit content:Broadly, the content of the unit varies depending on the particular thesis projects in which students are engaged. However, there are certain core elements.
In the first part, a Wittgensteinian approach to meaning (meaning as use) is applied in order to move beyond a naïve (objectivist) conception of the meaning of words to a more sophisticated understanding of meaning. That is, the activities in which scholars are engaged are taken to provide the frame for understanding what they mean by (how they use) particular words. Attention is paid to the words (concepts) that have particular salience in the disciplines and sub-disciplines in the social sciences that are relevant to students’ thesis projects.
In the second part, a Kuhnian/Foucaultian understanding of the production of knowledge is applied to move beyond naïve (objectivist) understanding of knowledge production. The disciplinary aspects of disciplines and disciplines are highlighted and the ways that this affects their approach to the production of knowledge Attention is paid to the disciplines and sub-disciplines in the social sciences that are relevant to students’ thesis projects.