This advanced seminar explores theories, concepts, methods, and cases in qualitative social science research on human rights. It will provide a venue for students to undertake independent, critical, work on human rights, using existing literature and databases. The course will begin with a discussion of contending conceptions and understandings of human rights, followed by a review of empirical social science theories (including rationalism, structuralism, and culturalism) and their relevance for explaining and understanding contemporary human rights challenges. Next, we will explore strategies and sources for collecting human rights information (including events-based data, survey data and administrative and socio-economic statistics), while examining state-of-the art examples of human rights investigation and research. Finally, students in the seminar will use in-depth qualitative methods, especially single-country case studies and small-N analysis, to address contemporary human rights questions and to produce research reports with theoretical insights and comparative implications.
Learning Outcomes:
At the end of this course, you should be able to:
(1) conduct and present independent research on human rights;
(2) identify and assess different sources and methods for researching human rights;
(3) appreciate and scrutinize cutting-edge research in the field of human rights;
(4) critically evaluate the concept of human rights from diverse theoretical perspectives.
Delivery Method: Fully in-person
Prerequisites: Previous coursework in SCT or CAPA.
Course Level: 4000-level
Credits: 4
W 8:30AM - 12:10PM (Full-term)
Maximum Enrollment: 16
Course Frequency: Every 2-3 years
Categories: All courses , Fully In-Person , Politics
Tags: human rights , methods , Research , theory , Writing