Course Catalogue

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This module seeks to explore how capitalism and class play out in everyday life in the city, with a specific focus on Glasgow. It examines how capital and class manifest in the urban landscape through housing, processes of gentrification and territorial stigmatisation and in relation to local governance and community organising. It will consider how the city operates as a key site of capital accumulation through processes of financialisation and privatisation and also how the city becomes a key site of community resistance. Taking Glasgow as the analytical focus, this module aims to connect theoretical and empirical explorations of class in the city. This module extends the urban sociological tradition around ways of seeing the city and invites students to actively engage with and learn from the city around them. In doing so, it aims to encourage students to think analytically about how processes of capitalism play out in the city and shape the everyday lived experience. While Glasgow is a richly researched city which has inspired vast empirical studies on poverty and working-class communities, this module seeks to go beyond the traditional gaze downwards onto marginalised and poorer communities. As well as looking at how class inequalities and produced and manifest in the city, this module aims to cast the gaze upwards to look at power and wealth in the city. It also pays attention to the key spaces of class resistance and struggle emerging in the city. By using Glasgow as a case study, this module seeks to facilitate critical and analytical thinking around how urban capitalist processes play out locally and how they are received, negotiated and resisted. To do this this module combines lectures and seminars with field visits to key sites and community groups.

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In order to take this course you need to have met the requirements for entry into our Honours Programme. This means achieving a grade of 'D' or better in Sociology 1A and 1B and a 'C' or better in Sociology 2A and 2B. You also have to comply with the College of Social Science regulations for progression to Honours.

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One essay of 3,000 words (70%)

A weekly 'blog' diary critically reflecting on the community visits (30%) (this would be for 5 weeks)

Reassessments are normally available for all courses, except those which contribute to the Honours classification. Where, exceptionally, reassessment on Honours courses is required to satisfy professional/accreditation requirements, only the overall course grade achieved at the first attempt will contribute to the Honours classification. For non-Honours courses, students are offered reassessment in all or any of the components of assessment if the satisfactory (threshold) grade for the overall course is not achieved at the first attempt. This is normally grade D3 for undergraduate students and grade C3 for postgraduate students. Exceptionally it may not be possible to offer reassessment of some coursework items, in which case the mark achieved at the first attempt will be counted towards the final course grade. Any such exceptions for this course are described below. 

The course aims to;

■ Deepen knowledge of sociological studies of the city and class with a particular focus on Glasgow

■ Consider how structural, capitalist processes are received, negotiated and resisted in the local city

■ Facilitate an active sociological analysis through direct engagement with the local city

■ Think beyond top-down perspectives on cities and learn from local community perspectives

■ Develop a complex, critical perspective on the processes which shape class in the city today

By the end of this course students will be able to:

■ Describe and evaluate contemporary academic debates on class and capitalism in the city

■ Develop an ability to think analytically and critically about the city they live in

■ Recognise how processes of inequalities play out in the city and how they are experienced and resisted

■ Demonstrate a critical awareness of class politics in the city and how this plays out

■ Identify the complex interplay of political, economic and social factors shaping class in the city

Students must submit at least 75% by weight of the components (including examinations) of the course's summative assessment.