- Department: History
- Module co-ordinator: Dr. Jeremy Goldberg
- Credit value: 40 credits
- Credit level: H
- Academic year of delivery: 2021-22
Family is too familiar a concept. It is a basic building block of society. Modern, western families are small and nuclear. Politicians (and others) praise ‘traditional’ family values and bemoan the ‘breakdown’ of family. Comparative history challenges and problematises these givens. The western, nuclear family is not modern. For North American Indian peoples the ties of kinship extend far beyond the co-resident group, but the traditional Japanese family may welcome unrelated strangers as heirs if biological children are not considered up to the job. This course is about challenging preconceptions, opening minds, and trying to make sense of the apparent diversity of cultural understandings of who may live together, what makes a home, how children should be raised, who controls marriage, how family values are nurtured, or how to set up a household.
Occurrence | Teaching period |
---|---|
A | Autumn Term 2021-22 to Spring Term 2021-22 |
The aims of this module are:
Students who complete this module successfully will:
Teaching Programme:
Students will attend a 1-hour briefing in week 1 of the autumn term, and a 3-hour seminar in weeks 2-5 and 7-9 of the autumn term and weeks 2-5 and 7-10 of the spring term. Both the autumn and spring terms include a reading week for final year students and so there will be no teaching in week 6. Students prepare for and participate in fifteen three-hour seminars.
Seminar topics are subject to variation, but are likely to include the following:
Task | Length | % of module mark |
---|---|---|
Groupwork Project 4000 words |
N/A | 33 |
Online Exam - 24 hrs (Centrally scheduled) 24-Hour Open Exam |
8 hours | 67 |
None
For procedural work, the students will make group presentations towards the end of the autumn term. In addition, they may choose to submit an optional 2,000 word formative essay between weeks 7-9 of the autumn term. Essays should not be submitted in the same week as group project presentations are scheduled.
For summative assessment students will complete a 4,000-word group project due in week 6 of the spring term -- this will account for 33% of the final mark. They will then also take a 2,000-word 24-hour open exam during the common assessment period in the summer term, usually released at 11:00 on day 1 and submitted at 11:00 on day 2. The open exam will be worth 67% of the final mark.
Task | Length | % of module mark |
---|---|---|
Groupwork Project 4000 words |
N/A | 33 |
Online Exam - 24 hrs (Centrally scheduled) 24-Hour Open Exam |
8 hours | 67 |
Following their formative assessment task, students will receive feedback that will include comments and a mark. If this takes the form of live feedback in class it will be supported by a written comment sheet.
All students are encouraged, if they wish, to discuss the feedback on their procedural work during their tutor’s student hours. For more information, see the Statement on Feedback.
For the summative assessment task, students will receive their provisional mark and written feedback within 20 working days of the submission. The tutor will then be available during student hours for follow-up guidance if required. For more information, see the Statement of Assessment.
For term time reading, please refer to the module VLE site. Before the course starts, we encourage you to look at the following items of preliminary reading:
Arensberg, C.M. and S.T. Kimball. Family and Community in Ireland. 2nd ed., Cambridge, Mass: Harvard University Press, 1968.
Segalen, M. Love and power in the peasant family: rural France in the nineteenth century. Oxford: Blackwell, 1983.
Hamabata, M.M. Crested Kimono: power and love in the Japanese business family. Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell UP, 1990.