- Home
- Study at NCHSR
- Courses offered
Study at NCHSR
Courses offered
Recent Master of Arts thesesMarlize Mouton: 'More than a liver': The role of social workers in hepatitis C treatment centres. |
Further informationHelpful links |
The National Centre in HIV Social Research offers three courses as part of its postgraduate research program in Health, Sexuality and Culture. Please note that all course offerings are subject to demand; if an insufficient number of students enrol in any particular course, we cannot run it.
Students who do not wish to do all 24 units of credit (UOC) from the courses outlined below may do 8 UOC in other departments and faculties, subject to agreement with their supervisor.
| ARTS 5040: Bodies, Habits and Pleasures |
(8 Units of Credit)
This course investigates the cultural, social and political aspects of sex and drug practices using theories of embodiment. We approach the body as a locus of power, pleasure, learning, subjectivity and change. What happens when we conceive the body as a cultural medium rather than (or as well as) a mere object of health and medicine? How do social and cultural approaches enliven the doing of health? How are sexuality and drugs grasped by modern regimes of power? And how have endangered cultures and groups sought to transform embodied practice? Students will gain familiarity with important concepts from fields that are currently redefining the sociology of health, including science studies, corporeal feminism, queer theory, biopolitics, and governmentality studies.
| ARTS 5041: Researching Sex and Drugs A (quantitative methods) |
(8 Units of Credit)
This course provides an introduction to quantitative survey methods and data analysis, with a specific focus on the study of sex and drug practices. The course aims to provide students with the theoretical knowledge and practical skills to conduct quantitative research projects and to make sense of published research material. It introduces concepts and debates underpinning quantitative research methods, particularly those specific to research on sex and drug practices, and provides students with a background in research design, sampling, data collection, statistical analysis and understanding concepts such as reliability and validity. This is an introductory course and no prior knowledge or skills in quantitative research and analysis is assumed or required. A component of class time includes the hands-on use of SPSS statistical software.
| ARTS 5042: Researching Sex and Drugs A (qualitative methods) |
(8 Units of Credit)
This course equips students with qualitative research skills relevant to the study of sex and drug practices. Social theory understands these practices as socially and culturally produced. But they are also frequently constituted as personal, private, illicit or even shameful. This raises various challenges for the researcher, including questions of ethics, design, and interpretation of findings. This course will introduce students to a range of qualitative methods including interviewing, ethnography, focus groups, and research with cultural materials (including popular media and archives). Students will carry out a number of practical exercises, giving them experience in a variety of different research methods. We will consider and argue for the importance of qualitative methods within the largely positivist field of public health.
