Social Research (Economic and Social History) MA

You will study five core modules and one optional modules before completing your 15,000 word dissertation.

You will study five core modules:

The module considers fundamental philosophical debates about what counts as ‘knowledge’ across the social sciences and applies those discussions to your own disciplines and fields of study. Teaching addresses (natural) science as a method of obtaining knowledge and the interpretative tradition in the social sciences.
Assessment: 4,000-word assignment

This module introduces you to social science research designs and ethical issues in research practice. Learning supports you to be able to make strategic choices when developing your own projects, and to assess the design and research ethics decision making in others’ published research work.
Assessment: 4,000-word assignment

Concepts, methods and skills central to quantitative research, including data collection approaches and concept operationalisation, are core throughout this module. Building on a grounding in ideas relating to probability sampling, sampling error and statistical inference, coverage of techniques extends from comparisons of means and simple cross-tabular analyses to a discussion of multivariate analysis approaches, focusing on linear and logistic regression.
Assessment: 4,000-word assignment

Qualitative research is examined across a range of topics, from different approaches and methods including ethnographic and observational research, discourse and conversation analysis, documentary and archival analysis, participatory research and the use of interviews. Ethics in qualitative research is specifically considered, as is the evaluation of qualitative research.
Assessment: 4,000-word assignment

This module introduces you to the major developments in historical approaches since the Second World War and to some of the major schools of, or tendencies in, historical research such as the Annales School, the English historians’ response to Marxism, cultural history, the linguistic turn, gender, history of science and critical social theory (Geertz and Foucault). The focus is on the application of the ideas to historical practice then and now.
Assessment: 4,000-word assignment

You will also choose one optional module from a range which may include:

This module goes beyond thinking about Britain in terms of the great and the good and introduces you to rich and diverse sources through which historians have tried to understand the contours of everyday life in the past. The module will enable you to capture the pluralistic and inchoate messiness of ordinary life and historical change. A seaside postcard can be just as useful to a historian as a work of art. It is a module that will give you grounding in the interpretation of different sources and the problems and possibilities these present in studying the past.
Assessment: 4,000-word essay

As events in the last two centuries have shown, the outcome of conventional wars is very much dependent on the economic strength of the belligerents; and, in case of asymmetrical warfare, on whether the economical ‘superior power’ is willing to make the economic sacrifices necessary to winning a war. The module will introduce you to the economic problems of warfare since the Napoleonic era. Issues investigated will include: war finance; (industrial) production of war materials; organisation of wartime economies, including raw material provision, interruption of enemies’ economic systems; the ‘military-industrial complex’ and its influence; the impact political decisions have on the effectiveness and efficiency of armed forces; the impact of spiralling procurement costs.
Assessment: 5,000-word assignment

The module examines various aspects of global history in the second half of the 20th century. It takes its cue from a growing literature which sees 'globalisation' as a key feature of global history over the last half century. It will begin by examining the key institutions of a 'new world order' built after the Second World War; in particular, those connected to the United Nations and Bretton Woods. It will then explore the key actors in the processes of globalisation: inter-governmental organisations; nation states (especially, the USA, the USSR and the non-aligned); multinational corporations and non-governmental organisations.
Assessment: 4,000-word assignment

In addition to your taught modules, you will conduct a piece of independent research with the support of a supervisor, culminating in a 15,000-word dissertation.

Please note that the optional module information listed on the website for this programme is intended to be indicative, and the availability of optional modules may vary from year to year. Where a module is no longer available we will let you know as soon as we can and help you to make other choices.