The qualitative paradigm; major traditions of inquiry; the role of literature and previous research in inductive research; differences between sampling in qualitative and quantitative research; research procedures/data collection methods; methods of data analysis; ethical considerations in qualitative research; writing qualitative reports and research proposals

This course provides the basic grounding in quantitative methods needed by all social researchers, focusing both on its theoretical and methodological implications, and on the practical skills required, especially methods for the collection, processing, statistical analysis and presentation of data, including the use of standard software such as spreadsheets and SPSS.

The concept of exclusion; its social, cultural, political and ideological underpinnings; the dynamics and the processes involved; the implications of exclusion; the structural, cultural and ideological issues underlying this phenomenon and its reproduction.

Defining social change; the concept of progress and social engineering; contingency reflexivity, risk society and postmodernism; periodisation of change; world trends; socio-economic theory and structural change; changing aspects of Irish society; institutional change in Western Europe; identity formation and cultural change; problematising the concept of class in theories of change; citizenship in a changing world; power and contestation.