Faculty Booklet - The University of the West Indies, St. Augustine ...

28
P O S T G R A D U A T E R E G U L A T I O N S & S Y L L A B U S E S 2 0 1 2 - 2 0 1 3
THE FACULTY OF SOCIAL SCIENCES
3. Caribbean Political Thought
(i) Marxism
(ii) Race, Class and Gender
(iii) The New Right
4. Caribbean Constitutional Issues
(i) Westminster – Whitehall Model
(ii) Electoral Systems
(iii) Accountability and Scrutiny
(iv) The Caribbean Court of Justice
5. Structural Adjustment and the role of the State
i) Structural Adjustment
(ii) Administrative Reform
(iii) Privatisation
(iv) The Role of the State
Assessment:
Final examination - 75%
Coursework - 25%.
SEMESTEr: 2
COUrSE CODE: gOVT 6082 (gT64B)
COUrSE TITLE: CArIBBEAN POLITICS II
NO. OF CrEDITS: 3
COUrSE DESCrIPTION: The intention of this course is to
acquaint students with some of the more critical problems in
the politics of the Caribbean, broadly conceived. It draws upon
the various theoretical approaches and issues, which have
informed the discussion and controversies, which characterise
Caribbean politics. The course will focus on areas such as –
1. Structural adjustment
2. Militarism in the Caribbean
3. Leadership in the Caribbean
4. Ethnicity and Politics
5. Integration Theory
6. Globalisation and the changing International Relations of
the Caribbean
7. Governance, the New Public Management and Democracy
in the Caribbean
SEMESTEr: 1
COUrSE CODE: gOVT 6002 (gT64D)
COUrSE TITLE: METHODS OF POLITICAL rESEArCH
NO. OF CrEDITS: 4
COUrSE DESCrIPTION: This course is designed to help
graduate students learn the skills necessary to design and
conduct social research. Additionally, it provides training in
analysing quantitative data using SPSS Software. The course
requires basic computer skills and a working knowledge of
statistics. The course will meet twice a week, with each session
lasting two hours.
The methods portion of the course focuses primarily on
quantitative methods, but will also cover qualitative approaches.
Measurement, questionnaire design, and sampling will be
examined in detail.
The SPSS portion of the course is actually an extension of the
methods section, as students will design and field a short survey.
The data collected from the survey will be used for the SPSS
data analysis. The course is a combination of learning SPSS and
reviewing the most commonly used statistical test used by social
scientists.
Course Content
1. Conducting Social Science Research
2. Measurement and Linking Theory and Hypotheses
3. Sampling
4. Unstructured, Semi-structured, and Structured
Interviewing
5. Collecting Data and an Introduction to SPSS Data Analysis
6. Descriptive Statistics and Comparing Groups
7. Working with Data
8. Testing Hypotheses
9. Association and Regression
10. Course Summary and SPSS Final Examination
Assessment:
Draft of the research design - 5%
Final version of the research proposal - 10%
Final examination - 75%
In-lab SPSS test the final week of the semester- 10%
SEMESTEr: 1
COUrSE CODE: gOVT 6003 (gT64E)
COUrSE TITLE: POLITICAL SOCIOLOgY I
NO. OF CrEDITS: 3
COUrSE DESCrIPTION: The aim of this course in Political
Sociology is to acquaint students with the concepts,
approaches and foundations of the social determinants of
political processes; institutions and ideas in politics. Students
will accordingly be introduced to concepts such as society,
class, ideology, group, bureaucracy, institutional divergence and
congruence, development, ethnicity, kinship and values and
their implications for political analysis. Students will also be
expected to analyse various models of politics such as Systems
Analysis, Structure-functional analysis, World-system theories
and globalisation. The course will entail a study of the following
topics and writers – Marx, Weber, Durkheim, Braithewaite, M.G.
Smith, Talcott Parsons, Ideology, Bureaucracy, Institutions and
Organisations, Kinship Systems, Models of Politics and the Role
of Economics in Political Systems.