6 ECTS credits
150 h study time

Offer 1 with catalog number 1023317ANR for all students in the 2nd semester at a (A) Bachelor - preliminary level.

Semester
2nd semester
Enrollment based on exam contract
Impossible
Grading method
Grading (scale from 0 to 20)
Can retake in second session
Yes
Taught in
Dutch
Faculty
Faculty of Psychology and Educational Sciences
Department
Educatiewetenschappen
Educational team
Liesa Van Liedekerke
Geert Vandermeersche (course titular)
Activities and contact hours
26 contact hours Lecture
8 contact hours Seminar, Exercises or Practicals
Course Content

People are often (implicitly) guided in their actions and thinking by larger narratives about the society and their own role in it. These are called cultural narratives and they play a role in many domains of society from politics, culture, education and within the personal lives of people. As they can have such a large impact on human actions and thinking, they cannot remain blind spots. We must not only learn to see them, but also to rhetorically examine them. We must analyze how they are constructed, understand how they impact people, and learn how we can determine their ethical value within a broader social debate. After sketching a broader theoretical framework, we will examine a number of important cultural narratives (from politics, education and culture) in the lectures of this course.

Course material
Digital course material (Required) : Powerpointslides, teksten en artikels bij een aantal lessen, Canvas
Handbook (Required) : Door een andere bril. Kritisch denken en handelen herbekeken., Vandermeersche Geert, 1e editie, VUBPRESS (ASP Editions), 2021
Additional info

Digital course material (Required): powerpoint slides, student notes, texts and articles that accompany a number of classes, via the electronic learning platform Canvas.

Purchase of book (Required): cost estimated at 20 EUR (through VUB Press, publication date start of 2023). More information will follow in the first class.

Learning Outcomes

Algemene competenties

The student ....

  • can define concepts from the central, theoretical frameworks (rhetoric, discourse analysis and narrative theory), using the terminology learned;
  • can describe and illustrate the role of language in the public sphere, using the learned terminology (central frameworks), by means of developments within and examples from the agogic domain (more specifically debates around education, culture and art);
  • can understand the principles of spoken and written language production (good practices within different text genres; e.g. opinion texts, speeches, academic articles, powerpoints) and relate these to insights from the central frameworks
  • can apply the insights into the rhetorical role of communication (more specifically propaganda, fallacies, conflict language and their remedies) to concrete, new situations in political and social debate.
  • can analyze why certain communication situations derail and can advise how they can be improved using concepts from the central frameworks and the rhetorical role of language in communication situations (propaganda, fallacies, conflict language and their remedies);
  • can formulate arguments and positions from an articulate and (self) critical position and present own analyses of texts (e.g., policy texts) on a broader, current debate about education, culture, or the arts based on learned principles & good practices.

 

Grading

The final grade is composed based on the following categories:
Written Exam determines 60% of the final mark.
PRAC Practical Assignment determines 40% of the final mark.

Within the Written Exam category, the following assignments need to be completed:

  • Written exam with a relative weight of 60 which comprises 60% of the final mark.

    Note: Written exam (multiple choice and essay questions)

Within the PRAC Practical Assignment category, the following assignments need to be completed:

  • Individual assignments with a relative weight of 40 which comprises 40% of the final mark.

    Note: Assignment about 1 aspect of the course

Additional info regarding evaluation

The evaluation consists out of the following assignment categories:
Exam Written determines 60% of the final grade

WPO Practice Assignment determines 40% of the final grade

Within the category Exam Written the student must complete the following assignments:
Written exam with a weight of 60 and so 60% of the final grade.
Explanation: multiple choice and essay questions about the course

Within the category WPO Practice Assignment the student must complete the following assignments:
Individual assignments with a weight of 40 and so 40% of the final grade.
Explanation: Individual assignments about 1 aspect of the course


Absence on at least one of the obligatory exam parts (assignments and written exam) leads to absence for the complete grade. You must pass for every exam part to pass this course. If you fail for one or more of the parts, you will receive 9/20 or the average score if lower.

The partial grades of the categories for which you succeeded in the first exam period, can be transferred to the second exam period and will thus not have to be resubmitted or retaken.

Allowed unsatisfactory mark
The supplementary Teaching and Examination Regulations of your faculty stipulate whether an allowed unsatisfactory mark for this programme unit is permitted.

Academic context

This offer is part of the following study plans:
Bachelor of Adult Education: Profile Social Studies (only offered in Dutch)
Bachelor of Adult Education: Profile Cultural Studies (only offered in Dutch)
Bachelor of Adult Education: Initial track (only offered in Dutch)
Bachelor of Political Science and Sociology: - afstudeerrichting sociologie, minor samenleving en cultuur (only offered in Dutch)