Course overview
Space and how we relate to and within it is a core idea that has been explored since the early nineteenth century when people began to identify and describe the earth's surface. Since then the relationship between space and society has evolved to include our multiple interactions from our bodies to place, including cities, neighbourhoods, and large cities. Factors such as the distribution of power and status in cities, how we interact in everyday life spaces such as home, sport, and shopping and how spaces of fear and crime affect us will all be considered in this course. We explore the impact of class, gender, sexuality, race, age and disability on our individual and societal understandings of space. The course will build student skills and ability to evaluate and synthesise information and enable them to understand how different spaces can affect and influence the management of key social issues such as poverty, housing and crime.
Course learning outcomes
- Demonstrate understanding of key concepts within and relationship between space and society
- Demonstrate an understanding of spatial patterns of advantage and disadvantage, through an examination of inequalities associated with race, gender, sexuality, age and disability
- Demonstrate an understanding of and capacity to apply concepts of space to social issues such as crime, poverty and housing
- Apply a variety of theoretical approaches about space and society to evaluate urbanisation
- Build and apply a range of (transferable) skills and methods relevant to geographical and sociological enquiry and communication, which will be useful for other subject and employment areas, This will include the use, manipulation and computer mapping of census data; the interpretation of subjective data sources, and the presentation of material, including report writing, critical evaluation and analysis and synthesis