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Students acquire advanced knowledge  of the (qualitative and quantitative) methods and approaches of critical discourse analysis and they are able to investigate a specific topic.

The welfare state is since the beginning of its existence a topic for societal struggles, both in political debates and the public arena. Questions of distribution and justice are main issues for controversy.

In this advanced methods seminar we will focus on the discursive processes, dynamics and constructions related to these struggles. Critical Discourse Analysis offers theoretically grounded, methodologically specified and empirically tested instruments for this attempt. Starting from the theoretical foundations of discourse analysis and the sociological concept of critique we will first discuss the conceptional approaches, followed by an overview of different genres and fields of action (such as newspaper articles, commentaries, TV programmes). Small groups will then apply the various methodological approaches to investigate the different areas of the welfare state and to identify discourses of justice. Possible areas are youth and old age, poverty and richness, EU and globalisation, women and gender perspectives, migration or the labour market.

Mini lectures, presentations, practices of various methods, practical work with specific discourseanalytical methods to execute an own research project, writing of a final paper.

Participation, presentations, Writing of final paper.

Wodak, R and Meyer, M (eds.) (2009), Methods of Critical Discourse Analysis, Sage.

Further literature will be announced.

positive completion of the compulsory module according to § 5 Para 1 No 3.