GI414 Half Unit
Theorising Gender and Social Policy
This information is for the 2025/26 session.
Course Convenor
Asiya Islam
Availability
This course is compulsory on the MSc in Gender, Policy and Inequalities. This course is available on the MSc in Gender, MSc in Gender (Research), MSc in Gender (Rights and Human Rights), MSc in Gender, Development and Globalisation, MSc in Gender, Media and Culture and MSc in Gender, Peace and Security. This course is available with permission as an outside option to students on other programmes where regulations permit. This course uses controlled access as part of the course selection process.
Students should apply by 10am UK time on Friday 26 September 2025. Offers will be made after 10am on this date and will continue until all places are filled.
All students on the MSc Gender, Policy and Inequalities (for whom the course is compulsory) will be given a place. Priority is then given to home department students and then to those who have the course listed in their programme regulations who apply in the first 24-hours (by 10:00am, Friday 26 September 2025), space permitting. Please note the timing of your request within the first 24-hours will not impact chances of being accepted onto the course. Requests received after this timeframe, or outside option requests, will be allocated randomly if space remains.
Please do not email the Course Convenor with personal expressions of interest as these are not required and do not influence who is offered a place. Contact gender@lse.ac.uk with any queries.
Course content
This course aims to equip students with an understanding of how feminist scholars use theoretical and analytic concepts to engage with social policy issues and debates. The course provides an overview of mainstream theoretical explanations for the structure and evolution of welfare states, and feminist critiques and modifications of that literature. Students will develop an understanding of how key concepts like citizenship, work, and well-being have been conceptualized and applied in the academic literature to document and explain gendered inequalities. The use of gender as a category of analysis is examined and attention is paid to the potentially modifying effects of other social hierarchies such as race and class.
Teaching
15 hours of seminars and 15 hours of lectures in the Autumn Term.
This course has a reading week in Week 6 of Autumn Term.
Formative assessment
Students are expected to submit a 1,500 formative exercise during AT.
Indicative reading
- Bacchi, C. (2017). Policies as gendering practices: Re-viewing categorical distinctions. Journal of Women, Politics & Policy, 38(1), 20-41.
- Bletsas, A. and Beasley, C. (Eds) (2012). Engaging with Carol Bacchi : Strategic Interventions and Exchanges, Adelaide : The University of Adelaide Press.
- Crenshaw, K. (1991). Mapping the margins: Intersectionality, identity politics, and violence against women of color. Stanford Law Review, 1241-1299.
- Hearn, J., & Hobson, B. (2020). Gender, state and citizenships: Challenges and dilemmas in feminist theorizing. In T. Janoski , C. de Leon, J. Misra, & I. W. Martin (Eds.), The New Handbook of Political Sociology, pp. 153-190).
- Fraser, N. (2016) Contradictions of capital and care, New Left Review, 100, 99–117.
- Rai, S. M., Hoskyns, C., & Thomas, D. (2014). Depletion: The cost of social reproduction. International Feminist Journal of Politics, 16(1), 86-105.
- Risman, B. J., & Davis, G. (2013). From sex roles to gender structure. Current Sociology, 61(5-6), 733-755.
- Steidl, C. R., & Werum, R. (2019). If all you have is a hammer, everything looks like a nail: Operationalization matters. Sociology Compass, 13, Article e12727.
- Waylen, G. (2017). Gendering Institutional Change. In Oxford Research Encyclopedia of Politics.
Assessment
Project (100%, 3000 words)
Key facts
Department: Gender Studies
Course Study Period: Autumn Term
Unit value: Half unit
FHEQ Level: Level 7
CEFR Level: Null
Total students 2024/25: 31
Average class size 2024/25: 16
Controlled access 2024/25: YesCourse selection videos
Some departments have produced short videos to introduce their courses. Please refer to the course selection videos index page for further information.
Personal development skills
- Self-management
- Team working
- Problem solving
- Communication