Graduate Research Course Description

This course is designed as an intermediate level of research methods in sociology. The course covers the following key areas (a) theorising and conceptualization; (b) measurement; (c) sampling approaches; (d) quantitative research methods (including survey research, nonreactive research and experimental research); (e) qualitative research methods (including interviewing and observational techniques); (f) qualitative analysis (grounded theory); (g) quantitative analysis.

This course provides a systematic exposition of general linear models in social science research. Topics include relative frequencies, probability distribution, model specification, estimation, hypothesis testing, and remedies for violations of statistical assumptions. The main emphasis is on the hands-on application of statistical techniques to social research. Research articles in sociology are used to illustrate the application of these models and techniques. Extensions to nonlinear models and panel data analysis are introduced in the latter part of the course. The course aims to help students to strengthen their understanding of statistical concepts and modelling techniques, and enrich their capacity to interpret statistical findings.

This seminar is an advanced examination of key issues in qualitative social research, with a focus on developing the practical skills needed to carry out qualitative analysis. It begins by reviewing the process of devising a research project and key methods of research discussing diverse ways through which qualitative data is generated and knowledge is constructed. It then moves to examine various paradigms and techniques of analysis including narrative, content, discourse, and grounded theory analysis, exploring the advantages and limitations of each method. It also explores visual data analysis and data analysis and research support software including NVIVO, Zotero and AI-assisted analysis.

This course evaluates the objectives, implementation, and outcomes of the different types of policies and programmes at the organisational and societal levels. It analyses the rationale underlying major policies and programmes; the problems encountered during the implementation process; as well as the possible and probable discrepancies between objectives and outcomes, whether intended or unintended. Course participants will examine specific cases and be exposed to the methodology and range of methods in assessing the effectiveness of various types of policies, programmes and projects. This course is mounted for postgraduate students with an interest in policy issues.

This course provides sociological ways of looking at a multitude of patterns of everyday life, ranging from talking, touching, feeling, using space, waiting, relating to members of the opposite sex, choosing clothing, to presenting images of oneself to others. A large part of the course will focus on everyday life through the understanding of processes of interaction, as well as the mutually transformative connections between social structures and everyday face-to-face encounters. Using existing sociological frameworks and case studies, it analyses the form and character of everyday life experiences of Singaporeans.

This course provides practical training in the use of digital video cameras and film editing, as a research tool in the social sciences. This knowledge will be grounded in an understanding of how ethnographic documentary film has developed as a medium, its essential stylistic features and its ethical responsibilities to the participants in a film. Students work in small groups to learn basic techniques, then make a ten-minute film on a subject of sociological relevance. The aim is to equip students to be able to use video in future field research, and to instill an understanding of the ethnographic potentials of visual media.

This course presents a social history of the development of criminological thinking and contemporary criminological models in explaining crime, particularly sketching the influence of social sciences, in the way criminals and crime, are being viewed in contemporary society. But the study of crime, criminality, victimization and social policy is not dispassionate; it is inextricably linked to notions of social order and social control. The course, thus, will attempt to show that it is difficult, if not impossible, to study crime without examining the underlying assumptions and perspectives which account for how we come to regard crime as a phenomenon.

This course aims to teach students current methods and theories in population studies. Demographic methods for data collection and analysis will be covered, such as collection and application of census and survey data, cohort analysis, life table analysis, and population projection methods. The major themes in population studies will be discussed in depth, including topics such as low fertility, population aging, migration, population health, human capital, and the environment. For each theme, the current theories and related policy discussions will be introduced. The course has a strong international perspective, comparing population issues in Western countries with Singapore and other Asian countries.

Tourism is an important part of culture, society and the environment in the modern world. How have social scientists theorized about the role of tourism and its influence in the contemporary world? We will explore the history of the rise of tourism in the contemporary world and its rise as a type of “ordering” that is integrated with other social, political and economic changes of the modern world. What role does tourism have in the lives of people in industrial and post-industrial society? We will explore what it means to be a “tourist”, and what being a tourist means in the social and culture life of contemporary society. What is touristic culture? How does tourism shape culture and nature in the contemporary world? What is eco-tourism? Is tourism a way of solving ecological problems in marginalized and degraded environments? What is tourism's relationship with power, inequality and morality? This course will explore tourism as an important lens through which to understand our contemporary global situation.

Precludes: SC6229

We are living in a connected social world. The quest for a mechanism by which social connection is formed and dissolved and the pursuit of the impact of such mechanism on diverse areas such as economy, politics, culture, collective movement, technological development, or medicine have made social networks a popular topic in and beyond sociology. The course is a graduate course of social network theories and methods with three purposes: (1) introducing the theories of social networks, (2) teaching varied methods to measure social networks, and (3) providing practical opportunities to apply the methods to students' research projects.

This is a required course for all Masters research students admitted from AY2004/2005. The course provides a forum for students and faculty to share their research and to engage one another critically in discussion of their current research projects. The course will include presentations by faculty on research ethics and dissertation writing. Each student is required to present a formal research paper. Active participation in all research presentations is expected. The course may be spread over two semesters and will be graded "Satisfactory/Unsatisfactory" on the basis of student presentation and participation.

Modern society is highly complex and differentiated. Sociological theories help us to make sense of this complexity, to understand and penetrate realities at all levels of social aggregation – at the micro-level of individual interaction and of small collective units (such as the family), at the meso-level of organizations and intermediate institutions (such as business firms) and at the macro-level of society's basic structure. They enlighten us about hidden forces, principles and interests which shape our daily lives and the reproduction of social structures. This course aims to demonstrate the usefulness and limitations of different theories both as tools of analysis and as concrete guides to social practices.

This course will examine the complexities and the challenges to global social order and peace. With global transformation and the emergence of an interdependent world society, there has been a proliferation of risks. From ecological crises to the intensification of poverty, social inequality and social exclusion to the conflicts and violence on ethnic and religious lines have made the world a risky place. Theories of globalisation will be applied to examine the social contexts and consequences of these crises, risks and violence. Globalisation will be viewed as a complex process of cultural clashes intersecting with modern economy and polity. Using an inter-disciplinary framework, the seminar will explore the possibilities of minimising risks and violence in a new global social order.

This graduate seminar examines changes in family behaviour and household relationships from a global perspective. Class discussion will consider major theoretical perspectives and debates about changing family forms and family variation around the world. Literature will be drawn from multiple disciplines to explain these changes. This course will stress the dynamic interaction between macrosocietal forces and the microsocietal forces that affect family member’s lives around the world. We will study how the forms, functions, and definitions of the family vary across historical and cultural contexts and how social class, gender, and racial inequalities affect family changes.

This is a very advanced course which explores various societal domains in which gender plays a definitive role in structuring the way men and women interact, how it constrains or facilitates opportunities. The emphasis is on making sense of the production and reproduction of gender, gender inequalities and gender politics across a range of societal domains, its institutions and cultural practices - using insights from micro-sociological and macro-sociological theoretical perspectives. It is as crucial to adopt a critical approach towards the intellectual (including sociological) approach to theorizing gender, and the role of feminist theoretical positions in shifting the discourse and effecting concrete changes. The overall aim is to generate amongst students sophisticated and nuanced sociological understandings of how gender is understood in contemporary society, and how it intersects and interacts with race, class, political ideologies and sexuality.

Taking a historical perspective, this course explores the emergence of anthropological perspectives in Britain and the USA as well as the modes in which the disciplinary practices were institutionalized in the former colonies in parts of Southeast Asia and South Asia, starting from at least the closing decades of the 19^th Century. Paying close attention to the layered relationship between colonialism and anthropology, the course interrogates the production of anthropological “object of inquiry” and its “subjects” as well as the knowledge claims that the discipline has made over the course of more than a century.  The course introduces a select list of pioneering anthropologists from these regions and the – some unknown but others more famous: Koentjaraningrat, G. Obeyesekere, Lucy Mair,  W. H. Rivers Rivers, Ruth Benedict, Franz Boas, Iravati Karve and G. S. Ghurye, One core objective of the course is to highlight the  institutional contexts in which anthropological knowledge was produced and consumed . This demonstrates clearly that in the early decades of the discipline’s history, emergent anthropological perspectives found a home beyond academic shores – in museums (Peabody Museum at Harvard University, The Field Museum of Natural History, Chicago), professional associations and organizations (Ethnological Society, Royal Anthropological Institute, Malayan Brach of the Royal Asiatic Society, Asiatic Society, Archaeological Survey of India) and in early disciplinary journals (Journal Of The Straits Branch Of The Royal Asiatic Society The Indian Antiquary, Transactions of Ethnological Society of London, Epigraphia Indica, Journal of the Malayan Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society) – which expanded the remit and influence of the discipline considerably. While the historical lens offers a critical starting point, the course further reflects on the continuities between received anthropological legacies and contemporary disciplinary logics and practices and theorises both the critiques of inherited traditions and the new disciplinary terrains that have been conceived by practitioners.

This course examines the various forms of ethnicity, ethnic relations and the nation-state in Southeast Asia. Ethnic relations range from relatively peaceful, harmonious accommodation to armed (low-intensity) conflict. This course will survey conceptual and theoretical frameworks for understanding ‘race’, ethnicity and ethnic boundaries including: local-level communal interactions in a variety of socio-ecological contexts; social inclusion/exclusion and ethnic divisions of labour; indigenous-migrant relations; the relationship between migrant relations; the relationship between ethnicity, ethno-nationalism, nationalism and the nation-state. This course is offered to graduate students with an interest in cultural diversity and its social, economic and political consequences in relation to nation-state-making.

In the age of the Anthropocene, humanity faces perhaps the most pressing challenge of our time—the erosion of our planet’s vital ecosystems. What has driven societies to alter our biophysical world to an alarming state of crisis? How has environmental degradation, in turn, impacted our social lives? What is and ought to be our relationship with the more-than-human world? This course explores these questions through the lens of sociology and anthropology. Students will be introduced to the foundational concepts, theories, and debates in environmental sociology and anthropology necessary for them to pursue a specialization in these fields of expertise.

Among the themes covered are state power and formation, ideology, political violence and terror, democracy/authoritarianism, and social movements. These are addressed in relation to issues of political economy transformations within societies as well as the changing international political economy. It asks a number of fundamental questions, including: What are some of the defining features of social conflict and of the exercise of power in modern societies? What is the role of the state and of civil society-based organisations in defining social, political, and economic trajectories? Are major social transformations inevitably accompanied by conflict and violence? Has the nature of social conflict and power, domestic and international, been transformed in the post-Cold War and post-9/11 International Order? How has the recent world economic crisis affected the kinds of social conflicts that transpire in the developed and developing worlds? This course is comparative, providing case studies from the experiences of contemporary European, Latin American and Asian societies.

This course focuses on one of more of selected topics such as (a) travel flows, (b) migration and refugees, (c) diaspora, and (d) transnational networks, in order to examine broad questions. How does tourism intensify or transform local cultures? How does tourism affect nworking conditions, ideas of service, leisure and the culture industry? How does travel, migration and displacement create new identities in transnational spaces? What is the relationship between diaspora and global economics? How do diverse diasporic communities compare and relate to each other? What conditions shape the emergence of transnational networks and communities? What effects do transnational cultures have on governance at local and global levels? Topics may vary from year to year.

This course provides graduate students with an opportunity to engage with current anthropological and sociological approaches to the government of life in contemporary capitalism. We will look at how researchers have employed concepts such as governmentality, biopolitics, neoliberalism and multiculturalism to generate critical understandings of contemporary political conditions. More importantly, we will situate these works within a broader history of efforts in the human sciences to understand the relation of power and truth, and its implications for human life.

Ethnography is the central mode of documentation and representation in social and cultural anthropology. Ethnography, the detailed depiction of human social and cultural experiences and their focused analysis, can refer either to the process of conducting fieldwork and undertaking participant observation or the product of such research, in a written or a visual form. The course recognizes the diverse modes in which anthropologists represent their works, including in visual, oral and digital. The emphasis is on ethnographic writing/representation in an effort to understand the various methodological, literary and conceptual choices made by authors in the process.

The theorising of kinship relations has always had a central place in anthropological studies. This course will equip students with an understanding of kinship and personhood as essential aspects of human sociality, a knowledge of the key debates in kinship studies, and basic methods for the investigation of kinship and relatedness in field research. Topics covered will include current anthropological approaches to a wider field of ‘relatedness’ in a globalised world marked by new communicative technologies, voluntaristic friendships, changing family structures, the shifting significance of kin networks, the formation of transnational families, and the development of New Reproductive Technologies.

This course proposes to look at the various “culture areas” or “fields of ethnological study” that anthropologists have traditionally identified in Asia, examining specific ideas, theoretical and methodological issues that have emerged in these different regions; how have certain theoretical ideas shaped research in the different parts of the region? Have they facilitated exchanges of ideas and developments of theories within the broader discipline and in interdisciplinary research? How much does place, particularly our place in Asia, affect anthropological research and our understanding of theoretical issues that have become urgent in the contemporary world?

This course covers all aspects of work, employment, and unemployment and their connections with wider social processes and social structures. The changing nature of work under global restructuring will provide the background context to this course, while the intersection of work and the contemporary family will take the center stage. Understanding of the ongoing changes in work and family in industrial societies contributes to the effective management of change at both the national and individual levels. The course will also discuss the nature of time use in contemporary social life, including the changing patterns of work, leisure and consumption.

All human societies classify their members into categories that carry significant social meaning. A primary interest in sociology is stratification, which considers hierarchical social structures that rank people with respect to access to resources, and how such structure varies with space and time and enables individuals to move through different ranks over time at varying speed. This course will examine the concepts, methods, and facts in major literature about: class structure, intergenerational transmission of socioeconomic status, factors that affect an individual's socioeconomic achievement and social inequality. Students will study in greater depth specific situations in some Asian countries.

This course explores distinctive institutional arrangements in Asian capitalism(s). The course is composed of three parts. The first part reviews foundational studies in comparative capitalism and economic sociology. The second part covers institutional varieties of Asian capitalism such as developmental states, business groups, social networks, and value systems. The last part provides case studies of key capitalist economies in the region. Towards the end of the course, students will assess the relevance and the limitations of existing theories, which have been established based primarily on Western experiences, in explaining the unique characteristics and the internal diversity of capitalisms in Asia.

Independent research plays an important role in graduate education. The Independent Study course is designed to enable the student to explore an approved topic in Sociology in depth. The student should approach a lecturer to work out an agreed topic, readings, and assignments for the course. A formal, written agreement is to be drawn up, giving a clear account of the topic, number of contact hours, assignments, evaluation, and other pertinent details. Head's and/or Graduate Coordinator's approval is required. Regular meetings and reports are expected. Evaluation is based on 100% CA and must be worked out between the student and the lecturer prior to seeking departmental approval.

This is a required course for all PhD research students admitted from AY2004/2005. The course provides a forum for students and faculty to share their research and to engage one another critically in discussion of their current research projects. The course will include presentations by faculty on research ethics and dissertation writing. Each student is required to present a formal research paper. Active participation in all research presentations is expected. The course may be spread over two semesters and will be graded "Satisfactory/Unsatisfactory" on the basis of student presentation and participation.

This advanced course offers intensive and practical training of postgraduate students in professional writing in the disciplines of sociology and anthropology. Students will learn the intricacies of writing to publish in different types of academic publication. They will learn the different types of research writing involving qualitative inquiry, quantitative argumentation, ethnographic understanding, and theoretical reasoning. Students will have the opportunity to critically reflect on their own writing in the midst of completing their dissertation. Students will also learn how to present their writing in professional settings such as conferences and seminars.

Precludes: SC5880

This course deals with specialised topics in sociology. The topics covered reflect the expertise of visiting academics on emerging issues in sociology which have practical implications for social research and/or social policy. Such topics include Demographic Transition: Facts and Theory. Major topics include: 1. Education Research & Policy Issues 2. Demographic Transition: Facts & Theory 3. Family Structure & Change 4. Civil Society & Governance 5. Culture & Institutions 6. Economic Change & Social Consequences.