Suggested activities for offer holders of the 2021/22 Access Programme. Image Our policy on the Access Programme is to release teaching materials a week before the associated class. For this reason, we don't ask students to read course materials in advance. However, there are some ways in which you can prepare yourself for working on some of the disciplines in Access Social Sciences. As such, Dr Brian McGrail, a Teaching Fellow who teaches Social Sciences and Political Economy on the Humanities and Social Sciences strand of the programme, has shared some suggestions below... Before you read on, please note that these suggestions are entirely optional and there is no expectation for you to complete them. The Social Sciences can be defined in many different ways, but two significant ones claim they are: (a) about empathy or understanding how other people think and act; and (b) the means (information) by which the powerful can be held to account. Listen and/or watch a selection of the following. Keep it in mind that how something is being argued can be as important as what is being argued: If you have 6 or 7 minutes... Listen to the short podcasts from the BBC ReThink series, with educationalist Dr Catherine Riley (on the role of universities in society) and scientist Steven Pinker (on human nature). Listen to: Rethink with Dr Catherine Riley on BBC Sounds Listen to: Rethink with Steven Pinker on BBC Sounds If you have 40 minutes... Listen to this longer ReThink podcast, a roundtable discussion on education, fairness and inequality which features University of Edinburgh professor, Lindsey Paterson. Listen to: ReThink Fairness: Education on BBC Sounds If you have 2 hours... Watch these BBC programmes (2 in the series) on ‘The Violence Paradox’, covering material we will examine in the first weeks of the course and providing more insight into Steven Pinker’s work. Find out more about 'The Voilence Paradox' with Steven Pinker on BBC iPlayer This article was published on 2024-10-14
