SOCIOL 703: Sociology of Mental Health

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General course information
This course is taught through a weekly three hour session consisting of both a lecture and discussion (though at postgraduate level, the two are very much combined). The University’s general expectation is that each postgraduate course requires an average of twenty hours work per week. This includes attendance at each session, reading of the required texts, and additional study towards reaching the learning outcomes, and successfully completing the related assignments.
Course objectives
By the end of the course, students will be able to:

  • Critically evaluate medicine’s and psychiatry’s focus on behaviour considered ‘sick’ or ‘abnormal’ as part of the more general process of modernity.
  • Critically assess medicine and psychiatry as social, economic, cultural and political -as well as medical- projects.
  • Critically evaluate the profession of psychiatry through use of relevant social and sociological theory.
  • Place medicine and psychiatry within its wider social, cultural, economic and political contexts.
  • Critically debate current key topics within the sociology of medicine and mental health.

To achieve the course objectives you will need to:

  • Attend the weekly sessions.
  • Read and understand the compulsory readings.
  • Take an active role in the weekly sessions.
  • Research your assignments thoroughly, drawing on appropriate literature and social theory in the area.
  • Complete your assignments on time.

Course assessments
The assignments for this course are: First Essay Proposal (10%), First Essay (40%), Second Essay Proposal (10%), and Second Essay (40%)
Note: It is strongly recommended that students discuss their proposed essay topics with the Lecturer well in advance of the substantive writing periods.
Summary of deadlines/assignments:

  • By 6pm on Friday 22 March: Upload* First Essay Proposal (10%): 1,000 word proposal for a critical essay on the history of psychiatry using a topic of your own choosing.
  • By 6pm on Monday 15 April: Upload* First Essay (40%): 5,000 word socio-historical essay on psychiatry using a topic of your own choosing.
  • By 6pm on Friday 10 May: Upload* Second Essay Proposal (10%): 1,000 word proposal for a project essay on a sociology of mental health topic of your own choosing.
  • By 6pm on Wednesday 5 June: Upload* Second Essay (40%): 5,000 word project essay on a sociology of mental health topic of your own choosing.

*Please note that there is no physical hand-in of assignments for this course. Instead, all assignments must be uploaded to Turnitin via the SOCIOL 703 Campus page. Once marked, comments and feedback will be available through accessing your assignment on Turnitin.
First Essay Proposal (10% of final mark)
Due by 6pm on Friday 22 March
A 1,000 word proposal for an essay on the history of psychiatry using a topic of your own choosing.
This assignment encourages you to plan your essay and carry out initial background research systematically and with a clear focus; the feedback you will receive from this assignment will help you successfully complete the essay itself.
See the ‘First Essay’ details below for the required focus of this assignment. The proposal should outline the rationale for undertaking this essay, including clarification as to why the topic chosen is sociologically relevant and useful to investigate. Central to the proposal will be a brief summation of your main argument – typically, this will include reference to the ‘official account’ (including the ‘official history’) on the topic as well as alternative views from sociological and associated scholars (including alterative/critical historical accounts). The proposal also needs to consider why the discussion in your essay is of relevance to contemporary study in the sociology of mental health. The structure of the proposal can vary, though some may wish to follow a typical structure used by academic journals for abstracts (e.g. introduction, background, results, discussion, conclusion, etc.).
First Essay (40% of final mark)
Due by 6pm on Monday 15 April
A 5,000 word socio-historical essay on psychiatry using a topic of your own choosing.
A critical grounding in the history of psychiatry is crucial to conceptualising the current character and status of psychiatry and the mental health system in western society. For this assignment you will need to choose a topic that allows you to explore the socio-historical development of psychiatric professionals as the experts within the field of mental health and/or their medical technologies/practices as appropriate responses to forms of mental illness. In this assignment you will need to include both ‘official’ and ‘alternative’ accounts of such histories. This means, including commentators who support a scientific view of psychiatry as ‘objective’, ‘progressive’, and truth-seeking, and those -especially from sociology and associated disciplines- who have questioned such ideas. You will also need to contextualise your account within the current workings of psychiatry and the mental health system, giving some implications from your study for the sociology of mental health.
Please be as specific as possible with the focus for your essay: ‘women and the medical gaze’, for example, is far too broad a topic for research, whereas an essay on ‘the medicalisation of the housework’ is much more likely to succeed.
Second Essay Proposal (10% of final mark)
Due by 6pm on Friday 10 May
A 1,000 word proposal for a project essay on a sociology of mental health topic of your own choosing.
This assessment has the same basic requirements as the ‘First Essay Proposal’ (see above), but please see ‘Second Essay’ details below for the required focus of the essay.
Second Essay (40% of final mark)
Due by 6pm on Wednesday 5 June
A 5,000 word project essay on a sociology of mental health topic of your own choosing.
Your essay must be on a topic or sub-topic from within the sociology of mental health, and must be on a substantially different topic to your first essay. You can choose something related to a topic we have covered on this course, but please feel free to develop your own ideas.
Again, narrow your topic and be quite specific about what you are proposing to study, including questions to answer in your work. Researching a topic as broad as ‘medication and mental health’, for example, is unlikely to succeed, whereas ‘Premenstrual Dysphoric Disorder (PMDD) and productivity in the workplace’ is more likely to.
Important notes on the completion of assessments
In line with International Sociological Association policy, the use of sexist, racist or homophobic language will not be tolerated on this course.
In completing your assignments successfully you should:

  • include a full title at the beginning of each assessment which clearly outlines your research topic;
  • demonstrate a clear structure within your first and second essays, including the clear marking/naming of different sections;
  • have a clear and specific research focus;
  • include specific thinkers, theorists, texts, sources and examples;
  • include a minimum of 20 academic references (e.g. journal articles, books, chapters) in both your first and second essays;
  • use good English, with appropriate punctuation, avoiding slang and abbreviations;
  • include a bibliography which contains all the references used in the main text of your assignments;
  • comply with APA or Harvard referencing styles;
  • include a word count total at the end of each assignment.

Please note that marks will be deducted for lateness, for being more than 10% under or over the word limit, and for poor referencing (both in-text and end reference list).
Please plan your background research and writing appropriately. I will no longer accept assessments for marking if they are over a week late – in these cases the work will receive no mark.
Please check your assignment matching score in advance on Turnitin (you can re-submit your assignment on Turnitin up until the official deadline date/time). Assignments with a match score higher of 40% or higher on Turnitin will receive no mark.
Course readings
Please see the SOCIOL 703 ‘Reading Lists’ page on Canvas to access the mandatory weekly course readings. There is no hard copy reader or text book for this course.
Additional readings and sources can be found in the library (see following section for additional weekly readings; the section after that has a large selection of sociology of mental health references and sources to help with your essay work).

 
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Finance Case

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The typical case report will be about 3 pages (single spaced) in length, not including spreadsheets and other calculations.  You must show in the report or in the appendix, all formulas used and all calculations performed to support your analysis. 
CASE 7: The Financial Detective, 2005
Synopsis and Objectives
The case presents you with financial ratios for eight pairs of unidentified companies and asks you to mate the description of the company with the financial profile derived from the ratios. The primary objective of this case is to introduce you to financial ratio analysis—in particular, the range of ratios and the insights each one affords. This case presumes that you have already been introduced to the definitions of various financial ratios through other readings or lectures, and prerequisite classes.
The structured exploration of pairs of companies within an industry affords a number of important insights into strategy and financial performance. First, the economics of individual industries account for significant variations in financial ratios because of differences in technologies, product characteristics, or competitive structures. Second, financial performance results from managerial choices: within industries, the wide variation in financial ratios is often a result of the differences in corporate strategy in marketing, operations, and finance. You should see the interaction of strategy and financial performance.
Comparisons among industries
This case is primarily about the effects of managerial strategy on financial ratios, but it also affords several insights about the effect of industry differences on financial ratios. For instance, differences in asset intensity can produce dramatically different asset structures (for example, compare the percentages of inventory and net property, plant, and equipment [PP&E] for paper products with computers). The rate of technological change can manifest itself in several ways including the reinvestment rate required to stay competitive (for example, compare dividend-payout ratios for newspapers, and books and music). Industry structure is believed to affect the profitability through the pricing power of the firm. The newspaper industry can be characterized as locally oligopolistic (in some areas, however, monopolistic); the discount retail industry is much more competitive in structure. The gross profit margins of the two industries differ substantially. The general insight is that, in conducting the financial analysis of a firm, one must understand the nature of the industry.
Some observations about the art of ratio analysis:

  • Ratio analysis is only as good as the financial statements that underlie it. In particular, one needs to understand the accounting policies that generated the statements. The various treatments of goodwill, lease obligations, and equity interests in subsidiaries appear in the discussions. In addition, the absence of data can frustrate ratio analysis.
  • Frameworks such as the DuPont system of ratios and categories of ratios (activity, profitability, liquidity, and leverage) are useful organizing schemes for an analysis.
  • Naïve ratio analysis can absorb considerable time, as one seeks to find a pattern (any pattern) in the blizzard of numbers. Effort is economized by thinking first about the underlying business that generated the ratios.

In the Case Report, you must relate the description to the company (A,B,C,etc.) and list and discuss the ratios that justify your choice.  You will need more than one ratio to support your choice.  The chosen ratio must be relevant to the industry.

 
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FIN 435 Case Study

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This case written assignment is on Arcadian Microarray Technologies, In. (Case 44).
 
Report Requirements:
·       Cover sheet with case name, date, team number and team members;
·       One or two page written report analyzing questions given; and
·       Exhibit with any financials, ratios, charts/graphs that you address in your report.
 
 
Your analysis should cover the following concerns:
1.
3.     1.. Regarding the cash flow forecasts in case Exhibit 5, at what point in the future would you set the forecast horizon for the three investments? Why? More generally, what should determine when you stop forecasting annual cash flows and estimate a terminal value?
4.    2. Estimate other terminal values based on alternate estimation approaches. From these various estimates, please triangulate toward a single composite estimate of terminal value for each of Sierra Capital and Arcadian’s forecasts.
What is the resulting present value (PV) of cash flows under Sierra Capital and Arcadian’s outlook?
How significant was TV in creating the difference between the two present value estimates?
5.    3.  As a general matter in valuation work, how much attention should terminal value garner? What short list of questions about TV could you keep on hand in case a client asked you to opine on a valuation of that company?

 
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UKEA1023 MICROECONOMICS I

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Group Report (20%)
You have to set up a group consisting of 5 persons per group and are advised to select a group
leader. You are required to select and examine two businesses that have been established for at
least five years. You have to answer all of the questions below.
1. A
.
What is the name of the business and what product(s) or service(s) does it provide?
B. Who is the owner of the business (an individual, a family, partners, stockholders,
etc.)?
2. A
.
What inputs does the company use to produce its product or service? (While your
companies’ input usage may differ from that discussed in class, a review of your
course notes on fixed and variable inputs may be helpful here.)
B. Which of the company’s inputs are variable inputs? In other words, suppose the
company wanted to produce more or less than it had been. For which inputs could
the quantity used be easily changed in a relatively short amount of time, such as a
month?
C. Which of the company’s inputs are fixed inputs? That is, for which inputs, can the
quantity used not be changed in a relatively short amount of time?
3. A
.
Suppose the company increased the price of its product/service (or one of its
products/services if there are more than one) by about 10%. Would the quantity
purchased be expected to fall by about 10%, more than 10%, or less than 10%?
(Data on prices and sales are not requited in answering this question. You can make
predictions based on the features / characteristics of the business that have been
chosen).
B. What does your answer to part 3A imply about the elasticity of demand for the
company’s product/service? That is, is the demand for the company’s
product/service elastic, inelastic, or unit elastic?
C. What do your answers to 3A and 3B imply about what would happen to the total
revenue from sales of the product/service? That is, would it increase, decrease, or
remain the same? Explain.
4. With whom does the company compete? Be specific with real examples.
5. Does the company’s product/service differ from that of its competitors and, if so,
how?
6. Would this business be best described as a perfect competitor, a monopolistic
competitor, an oligopolist, or a monopolist? Explain.
7. A
.
How are your two businesses similar?
B. How are your two businesses different?
8. What did you learn from this assignment (economics-related or otherwise)?
Use an essay format for the written paper. Do NOT use an exam format with just question
numbers followed by answer phrases. The paper must be typed double-spaced, using a 12-point
1

font of Times New Roman and 1-inch margins. The page limit is from 10 to 12 pages. Be sure
that you have clearly answered all parts of all questions. Both content and writing style are
important in this assignment. Pay careful attention to spelling, punctuation, and sentence
structure. Students are advised to incorporate American Psychological Association (APA) mode
of referencing
 
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