This modules is a core module in the Professional Diploma in Politics and Society for Teachers (PDST). Issues of social integration and inequality are key features of contemporary society that both reflect and reproduce all of the fundamental social dynamics that shape the modern world. This module provides a thoughtful and empirically grounded overview of the key issues.

This module examines the social dynamics of social and economic difference and how these shape large scale patterns of social equality/inequality and inclusion/exclusion. Participants will learn about the most influential social science perspectives on integration and inequality in the last hundred years and will learn about the key research findings that organize understanding of stratification. This involves identification of the basic contours of inequality at the global, national, subnational, and individual levels. It also involves identification of the different dimensions of inequality and interrogation of the mechanisms of inequality as shown in seminal pieces of sociological research. Ultimately, participants will understand the implications of these for how teachers, students, schools and other educational stakeholders foster better and more just outcomes in the 21st century. Particularly attention will be paid to how educational practices and institutions are embedded in larger social, economic and political contexts that shape learning and its consequences across generations and over the life course.  Themes covered focus on seven areas: conceptualization of inequality and stratification, issues of politics and public opinion; global patterns of inequality; social mobility, particularly as it relates to educational processes and attainments; mass education, what it is, and its relationship to nation-states and development; the dynamics of education and its implications for inequality; and the special role of families in supporting (or not supporting) education and learning.    

On successful completion of this module, students will be able to: • Demonstrate an understanding of the nature of integration and inequality and its consequences in 21st century society  • Show familiarity with social science explanations of integration and inequality and the mechanisms that produce it.  • Identify and understand aspects of integration and inequality in all aspects of schooling and how this both reflects and reproduces stratification in society  • Demonstrate an understanding of the interactions of educational and other social institutions and how this results in both the large-scale patterning on inequality and people's position in socioeconomic hierarchies  • Engage with a pedagogical case-study relevant to the key content.

On successful completion of this module, students will be able to: • Appreciate the significance of social factors that shape inequality.   • Demonstrate the practice and value of interrogating commonsense assumptions regarding key social institutions and their role in social integration and inequality 

On successful completion of this module, students will be able to: NA

The module is taught online via a recorded lecture that is supplemented with interactive tutorials. The material covered in the lecture combines classic work and the most recent research on globalisation and its implications.