Accessibility statement

The Racial State - SOC00039H

« Back to module search

  • Department: Sociology
  • Module co-ordinator: Dr. Haley McAvay
  • Credit value: 20 credits
  • Credit level: H
  • Academic year of delivery: 2022-23

Module will run

Occurrence Teaching period
A Autumn Term 2022-23

Module aims

The aims of this module are to:

  • Provide a theoretically informed understanding of the interaction between race and modern state formation.
  • Develop students understandings of links between stratification, race and structural notions of racism.
  • Consider the connections between racism and liberalism and think critically about racism as the exception.
  • Reflect on the significance of the postracial, both in terms of the implications of suggestions that racism is of the past or has been overcome, and in terms of how we might look to move beyond racial structuration.

Module learning outcomes

By the end of the module, students should be able to:

  • Engage with the sociological and related disciplinary literatures on the connections between racism and the state including institutions, media, policy and legislation.
  • Understand racism as a structuring device and reflect critically on social, economic, political and cultural inequalities.
  • Connect and critically discuss the theoretical literature on the racial state in relation to grounded empirical realities in Britain.
  • Appreciate the connections between the conceptualisations of race in Europe and racial governance in colonized states.
  • Think critically about the significance of claims to postraciality, what the postracial means in practice and as an ideal utopia.

Assessment

Task Length % of module mark
Essay/coursework
Assessment 1 - Essay		 N/A 100

Special assessment rules

None

Reassessment

Task Length % of module mark
Essay/coursework
Assessment 1 - Essay		 N/A 100

Module feedback

As in the First Year, you will continue to receive feedback on your formative assessments via the meetings with your supervisor at the beginning of term. It remains important to attend these meetings with the relevant documentation. However, you will ALSO receive extended feedback on the summative assessment work submitted in this second stage of your degree.

Because all of your summative work is examined by at least two members of the Department, and much of it will also be considered by the external examiners, there is an obvious conflict between the time that this takes and our desire to get feedback to you in useful format as swiftly as possible. For this reason, we will release the marks and the feedback forms to you as soon as they have been agreed internally that is, within the Department and before the external examiners have approved them. This means that we can get the feedback to you at least a fortnight earlier than would otherwise be the case but it also means that the marks for each module may change depending on the decisions of the external examiners, although this is rare.

You should note that, due to the fact that all submissions are second-marked and examined by multiple members of the academic staff, there is no appeal against the marks given.

Essays and other coursework: Detailed feedback for your essays will be found on the feedback forms you receive and through comments written on the work itself. These forms rate your performance according to essay content, organisation and style, using the benchmarks provided by the Departments published marking criteria. They will comment further and in detail about any specific strengths and weaknesses, and will provide suggestions as to how you might improve your work in future. You should make an appointment to see your supervisor to discuss these forms and it may be helpful to take with you a copy of the written work that you submitted. If further clarification is required, this may in consultation with your supervisor be sought from one of the examiners.

Examinations: Feedback for examinations will normally take the form of the mark received for the examination. The Department will, however, also make your scripts available to you for inspection.

Indicative reading

  • Goldberg, D.T. (2002) The Racial State, Oxford: Blackwell.
  • Winant, H. (2004) The New Politics of Race, Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press.
  • Kundnani, A. (2007) The End of Tolerance, London: Pluto Press


The information on this page is indicative of the module that is currently on offer. The University is constantly exploring ways to enhance and improve its degree programmes and therefore reserves the right to make variations to the content and method of delivery of modules, and to discontinue modules, if such action is reasonably considered to be necessary by the University. Where appropriate, the University will notify and consult with affected students in advance about any changes that are required in line with the University's policy on the Approval of Modifications to Existing Taught Programmes of Study.