Course Catalogue

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What is mental illness? Is it an individual medical problem to be clinically addressed? Or is it a social phenomenon asking profound questions about the societies in which we live? Can it be both? Is autism or ADHD something that people are just born with? Or can they (also) be viewed as particular cultural and historical 'formations'? This course delves into these complexities, exploring how societies construct and respond to mental distress and neurodiversity (or 'non-normative minds') examining the formative roles medicine, psychiatry and increasingly 'Big Pharma' plays. The course will utilise key concepts from across the sociology of health and illness, medical sociology, critical disability studies and anthropology to explore how mental distress and neurodiversity manifest differently across different global contexts, and the impact social, political, economic and cultural factors have in shaping these - both historically, and in the context of late-stage neoliberal global capitalism. The course will also explore diverse forms of resistance to dominant paradigms of understanding 'non-normative minds'.  

Lecture: one hour per week, for 10 weeks

Tutorial: one hour per week, for 10 weeks

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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Essay, 3000 words (70%)

Report, 1,000 -1,500 words (30%)

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 equip students with a critical approach to how mental distress and neurodiversity are commonly understood and represented within societies of the Global North, challenging these understandings through the use of the sociological imagination';  expand students' worldview beyond that of societies of the Global North, in gaining an awareness of how mental distress and neurodiversity can be understood and interpreted from some different positions in the Global South, as well as in some indigenous communities in the Global North ; and finally foster students as critical and active subjects in relation to these topics, with a keen knowledge of how power relations shape how mental distress and neurodiversity are constructed, understood and experienced.

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

■  Describe some of the theoretical, methodological, and conceptual approaches to the sociology of mental distress and neurodiversity.

■ Critically examine the dominance of medical understandings and approaches to mental distress and neurodiversity using sociological arguments.

■ Examine and analyze social factors influencing mental distress and experiences of neurodiversity. Consider contemporary contexts, including intersections of gender, sexuality, ethnicity, class, and age in the discussion.

■ Evaluate how mental distress and neurodiversity are represented in a range of cultural texts through critical analysis and synthesis.  

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