Danziger, K. 1997 Naming the Mind: How Psychology Found its Language, London, Sage.
Owusu Bempah, K. and Howitt, D. 2000 Psychology Beyond Western Perspectives, Leicester, BPS books.
Richards, G. 2002 Putting Psychology in its Place, London,
Routledge.
Rose, N. 1998 Inventing Ourselves: Psychology, Power and Personhood Cambridge, University Press.

Be registered on any Psychology Award

Contact Hours: 20
2 hour lectures
1 hour seminars including tutor-led preparation for assessment

Independent Study Hours: 130
Preparation of readings for seminars - 45 hours
Group preparation for presentation - 20 hours
Guided Reading - 35 hours
Exam Preparation - 30 hours

Lectures will provide a general introduction to the theories, methods and broader issues around conceptualisations of difference.
Seminars will enable more detailed and in-depth discussion of specific readings relating to historical analyses of difference and debates about issues of application, practice and policy. Students will be expected to prepare work in advance, present key papers and lead discussions. The reason for this is that we will place an emphasis on the conceptual grasp and critical discussion of key issues
Group work will enable students to develop their communication skills in both presenting and discussing material and bring to bear their own examples and ideas to discussion of wide ranging issues. These could include anger management/ assertiveness training, ethnic monitoring, sexual harassment in the workplace, multi-cultural education, the DSM and defining mental health, underachievement in schools.

This module provides an historical and contextual examination of the origins of Psychology as a discipline through the production of its subject as a knowable individual. Challenging the wisdom of attempting to understand individual behaviour outside of a social, cultural, political and moral framework, the module examines the development of a vocabulary of individual differences - intelligence, personality, sex, 'race' and culture - critically questioning the conceptualisation of relations of similarity and difference between people. These issues will be explored in relation to techniques that 'materialise the mind' and construct notions of normality / abnormality (eg IQ testing, psychometric measures, developmental scales, personality assessments and the normal distribution curve). Some historical and cultural explanations advanced to conceptualise and account for 'difference' (physiological, biological, neo-Darwinist, social learning, humanist, psychoanalytic, social constructionist) will be explored in varying contexts of their use (schools, prisons, work places and clinics) in relation to application, practice and policy and to issues of inequality, individual rights and justice. Critiques of the traditional methods in Psychology used to understand these issues will be explored, and the relevance of some paradigms (eg Reductionism, functionalism) will be discussed.

Summative assessment
2 hour Exam: 2 questions in 2 hours, 2 sections 1 and 2, students must answer one from each.

Section 1: Historical question about the role of Psychology in dealing with difference (learning outcomes 1 and 2)
Section 2: The relationship between explanations/ measures of difference and social application, practice and/ or policy. (learning outcomes 3 and 4) (80%)

A tutor assessed group presentation. (20%) (learning outcomes 1 and 5)

Formative learning
During seminar sessions students will be expected to participate in at least one group presentation. Each presentation will constitute a task relating to the exam and will be directed at a question similar to those that make up the exam paper.