Prof Sandra Jovchelovtich, STC. S310, Dr Caroline Howarth STC. S384.

Optional course for MSc Culture and Society, MSc Health, Community and Development, MSc Social and Cultural Psychology, MSc Organisational and Social Psychology, and MSc Social and Public Communication. Students on degrees without a psychology or media component may only attend subject to numbers, their own degree regulations and at the discretion of the Teacher responsible. A knowledge of any of the following is considered relevant: psychology, sociology, anthropology, linguistics or philosophy.

To acquaint students with the theory of social representations and its multiple fields of application emphasising how it contributes to the understanding of the production, transformation and contestation of knowledge systems in the contemporary world.

This course provides students with extensive knowledge of the theory of social representations. This is a theory of both social knowledge (highlighting the construction, negotiation and contestation of different knowledge systems) and social change (highlighting the interplay between social and community identities and relations of power). The course covers 4 parts. 1: The theory of social representations and its history, covering the theory's ancestors (Durkheim, Weber, Piaget, Vygotsky, Lévy-Bruhl and Freud) and recent developments. 2: Classical studies in social representations - their methodology and findings, including representations of madness, psychoanalysis, food, science, health and illness, the environment and nature. 3: Fields of application, covering health, community, education, multiculture, racism, organizations, public communication and marketing. 4: Criticisms and points of development, including critiques of the theory, the relationship between theory and method and the critical development of the theory.

Ten 1 hour lectures and ten 1-hour seminars in the LT.

An essay plan of not more than 500 words is required.

Key texts: S Moscovici, Social Representations, 2000; D Jodelet, Madness and Social Representations, Harvester/Wheatsheaf, 1991; S Jovchelovitch, Knowledge in Context: Representations, community and culture, Routledge, 2006; W Wagner and N Hayes, Everyday Discourse and Common Sense, Palgrave, 2005; I. Marková, Dialogicality and Social Representations, CUP, 2003; K Deaux & G Philogène, Representations of the Social: Bridging Theoretical Perspectives, Basil Blackwell, 2001.

Other texts: R M Farr & S Moscovici (Eds), Social Representations, Cambridge University Press, 1984; Howarth, C. (2006). "A social representation is not a quiet thing": Exploring the critical potential of social representations theory." British Journal of Social Psychology. I Marková & S Jovchelovitch (Guest Editors) Journal for the Theory of Social Behaviour, Special Issue on Psychoanalysis: its Image and its Public, 38(4) 2008; S Moscovici, The Age of the Crowd: A Historical Treatise on Mass Psychology, Cambridge University Press, 1985; I Marková & R M Farr (Eds), Representations of Health, Illness and Handicap, Harwood, 1994; H Joffe, Risk and 'The Other', CUP, 1999.

A written assignment of not more than 3,000 words (100%).