Gender, Sexuality and Society (MSc Sociology)

The track in Gender, Sexuality and Society provides the student with a solid theoretical, conceptual, and methodological foundation in the social sciences. It offers students an interdisciplinary approach to the main concerns of our time. The historical and comparative dimensions emphasized in the majority of the courses train the student to analyse issues in society and culture from various perspectives and to put them in their wide-ranging sociological, political and cultural contexts. The combination of empirical studies with theoretical reflection and reading will provide the intellectual tools and abilities that students need to better understand, analyse and cope with the world's contemporary problems and complexities. The programme aims to integrate the social and cultural imperatives that shape gendered identities and sexual behaviour and relationships into the normal research repertoire of social scientists. Accordingly, in students will learn how to incorporate a multi-disciplinary and transnational approach to the assessment of the shifting influences of ethnicity, class, age, nationality, and power structures on gender and sexual behaviour and vice versa.

Upon completion of the programme, students will have acquired profound knowledge of theories and concepts used to research and analyse specific social and political problems. They will have learned how to critically analyse and evaluate social science theories, research methods, and results. In addition to this, students will have acquired advanced skills for reading, analysing, and summarising literature within their field of specialisation, and for placing that literature within larger historical and intellectual contexts. They will have learned how to conduct literature and data searches, to design research projects, to write argumentative texts and to present their research findings, scientific papers, and/or policy papers. In order to complete their degree, students will have applied their knowledge in writing a research proposal and in conducting empirical research for their Master's thesis.