FHE4350 – Politics of Sustainability in Public Health - Data-Driven Critical Conceptual Analysis
Schedule, syllabus and examination date
Course content
The course draws attention to the power of key concepts in the sustainability agenda and more specially, how such concepts have come to accommodate various and sometimes conflicting ideological messages. Concepts such as?sustainability,?empowerment,?partnership?and?resilience can for instance reflect both an urge for global solidarity and a requirement for self-management and improvement. The course engages participants in critical reflection about how concepts and their divergent and sometimes conflicting meanings impact how we frame and address public health and sustainability issues, thus fostering understanding of how socio-political processes affect environmental and health processes.
An important method used in the course is data-driven critical conceptual analysis based on corpora. The development of free, open-access corpora and corpus analysis tools enables students and researchers anywhere in the world to question and investigate the semantic and affective meaning of the concepts they use in everyday language and that they tend to take for granted. This is a particularly powerful, but as yet underused resource by scholars in public health and critical sustainability studies.
The course offers a rare and valuable opportunity for students with many different backgrounds to work together to gather and analyse data, explore areas of agreement and disagreement, and develop a more nuanced appreciation of the diversity of meanings that may be attributed by different people to the same concept.
Learning outcome
Knowledge
After completing the course, you will be able to:
- outline/explain the political and ideological implications of the choice of terminology in sustainability discourses
- describe/summarize existing corpora/sub-corpora, and suitable tools for their analysis
- outline/explain theoretical approaches to the understanding and analysis of conceptual and discursive power in public health
Skills
After completing the course, you will be able to:
- identify patterns in linguistic data and explain how they affect the semantic and affective properties of concepts
- offer a critical explanation of the implications of linguistic patterns for the politics of sustainability
- use corpus analysis tools effectively to analyse textual data and key concepts in the sustainability agenda
- analyse the power inherent in language and concepts and how language and concepts impact public health decisions
- address complex questions based on collective, live analysis of data/corpora in a datathon setting
General competence
After completing the course, you will be able to:
- communicate your own subject knowledge to peers outside your discipline
- cooperate productively with peers from different areas of expertise
- present your results clearly to a non-expert academic audience
- elaborate a convincing argument to explain the significance of the results of conceptual analysis
- carry out research in interdisciplinary teams
- offer reasoned justifications for the choice of terminology in sustainable development
- critique taken-for-granted, singular definitions of key concepts that do not attend to disciplinary and cultural diversity
- reflect on your own research and dissemination practice
Admission to the course
Capacity and prioritizing of students
The total capacity for this course is 40 students.
Folkehelsevitenskap og epidemiologi (master – to ?r) and applicants from Circle-U. partner institutions are prioritized.
FHE4350 is also available for students in the following study programs at the Institute of Health and Society:
The principle of the first come, first served applies if there are more applicants than seats.
Circle U. (20 students)
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Master's students from the Circle U. partner institutions. The aim is two students from each university, additional students from each institution will be evaluated upon availability. Circle U. applicants are ranked by GPA average.
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Master's students from UiO not affiliated to The Institute of Health and Society. Master`s students from other programs will be considered if there are available seats left. The principle of the first come, first served applies here.
Application procedures for UiO students
Students who are admitted to study programmes at UiO must each semester register which courses and exams they wish to sign up for?in Studentweb.
If you are not already enrolled as a student at UiO, please see our information about?admission requirements and procedures.
Application procedures for Circle U. students
Formal Requirements?
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A completed bachelor’s degree of at least 180 ECTS
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Enrolment in a Master’s programme at one of the Circle U. institutions?
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A bachelor's degree grade average equivalent to a C on the Norwegian grade scale.?
A good command of English is expected of all students. It is the student's responsibility to ensure the level of language expected and needed to keep up with teaching and course content throughout the semester.
Documentation
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Diploma and complete transcript of records from the bachelor’s degree?
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Confirmation of enrolment in a Master`s programme at one of the Circle U. institutions?
If applicable:
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Transcript of records of all other higher education completed to date (master’s courses)?
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A list of courses you are registered for this semester with the expected date for completion
If you are completing studies after the application deadline, please upload the following:?
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Transcript of records of all other higher education completed to date?
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A list of courses you are registered for this semester with the expected date for completion
Ranking of applicants
If there are more applicants than available places, applicants will be ranked, and selection will be based on applicant grade average from their bachelor’s degree. We do not use conversion tables for foreign grades. All foreign education is individually evaluated during the admission process.
How to apply
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Application portal opens:?15 May 2024
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Application deadline: 1 October 2024
Unfortunately there are currently no available rooms in student housing for exchange students on short-term mobility courses that are less than 2 months in length. Therefore you must either book a hotel room for your stay or rent a room in the private rental market. Please see UiO's useful link on short-term private rental housing.
You must have your own travel insurance, health insurance or another type of insurance that covers you while you are in Norway if you become sick or injured. Students from the EU/EEA should bring their European Health Insurance Card.
Grant
You may be eligible for an Erasmus+ grant from your home university. Please contact your mobility office for information regarding funding.
Teaching
Course duration: 2-6 December 2024
Teaching will be organized as a one-week intensive on-site course. Students will receive preparation tasks in advance of the course. The five-day course will start with a?lecture on the broad subject of sustainability as it applies to public health. The first three days will involve research seminars and hands-on sessions on corpus-based conceptual analysis. For the next two days students will work in small groups of three to four students, each under the supervision of a mentor. These sessions will be organized as datathons where all the groups work towards answering a common question by gathering and analyzing corpus data. On the fifth day a compulsory individual reflective report must be submitted. All compulsory activities must be approved prior to taking the exam. The exam consist of a group presentation on the same day, in the afternoon, which counts towards the final grade.
Compulsory activities:
- individual reflective report (max. 1000 words)
- 80% attendance in the course is required to be eligible to taking the exam. Attendance will be registered
Examination
Group presentation
All compulsory activities must be approved prior to taking the exam.
Language of examination
You may hold the group presentation in Norwegian, Swedish, Danish or English.
Grading scale
Grades are awarded on a pass/fail scale. Read more about the grading system.
Resit an examination
Circle U. students cannot present her or himself for the examination in a course more than two times. There will be held re-sits for Circle U. students who have failed an exam or who have legitimate absence.
If you are entitled to a re-sit exam you must contact the student advisor by email no longer than one week after the result of the exam has been published.
More about examinations at UiO
- Use of sources and citations
- Special exam arrangements due to individual needs
- Withdrawal from an exam
- Illness at exams / postponed exams
- Explanation of grades and appeals
- Resitting an exam
- Cheating/attempted cheating
You will find further guides and resources at the web page on examinations at UiO.