Master in Engaging Public Issues

The study programme in a nutshell

Most of today’s major issues, such as climate change, racism or automated technologies, are not limited to traditional parliamentary politics. They play out in the public sphere of (online) media, social movements, expertise, activism and policy-making. This master's programme (MSc) enables you to understand how such concerns become public issues. It provides you with the tools to navigate and broker complex issues, develop your engagement with them and intervene in them.

Curriculum

This programme starts with an engagement with issues that concern you and trains you in advanced and publicly relevant social science. Situated in sociology but learning from other disciplines (media studies, science & technology studies, anthropology, postcolonial studies, urban geography, gender and queer studies), this master's programme helps you develop your engagement with 21st-century public issues.

During the programme, you get to work on issues you choose and ask questions such as:

• How are alternative futures imagined by climate activists, policymakers, and professionals?
• How does public mobilization around sexism or racism take shape?
• How do young people in precarious, flexible employment, organize new forms of solidarity?
• How are public issues mediated through online platforms like Instagram, twitter, or Facebook?
• How does the ‘smart city’ change urban politics?
• How do knowledge and expertise help shape public issues, and how do such issues shape access to, and the definition of, knowledge?
• How does European migration infrastructure shape the way people speak about immigration?

Next to studying social scientific approaches to such questions, you will be able to participate in field trips and seminars with people working on public issues.

The curriculum is subject to change. No rights can be derived from this information

Teaching at Erasmus University Rotterdam

Mode of education

The programme consists of 60 ECTS. It is comprised of three core courses, one methods course, one elective and a thesis. Next to studying social scientific approaches to different problems, you will be able to participate in field trips and seminars with people working on public issues.

Electives

The programme features some electives in block 2, but electives can also be selected from courses offered in other master specialisations in Sociology. Please note that electives only take place when more than 12 students are enrolled. In case of a lower number of enrollments electives will be cancelled and you will be kindly asked to enroll in another elective.

Curriculum

Block 1

• Social Science Research in Practice
• Publics and Issues: Introduction

Block 2

• Electives
• Infrastructures of Power

Block 3

• Thesis
• Public Knowledge

Block 4

• Thesis

Electives

Programme electives

• Political Attitudes and Behaviour in Context
• Family Inequalities

After graduation

After completing this master programme you will be able to:

• Understand how people become engaged with contemporary issues and form a public.
• Understand how knowledge, people’s identities and power are at stake in public issues.
• Analyze the interests, identities, infrastructures and imaginaries that shape public issues.
• Better intervene in public issues, based on an understanding of how public interventions are shaped.
• Critically evaluate and dissect academic texts, policy statements, expert judgments and activists’ statements.
• Work with diverse groups in society, with a better awareness of how your own background and identity shape your engagement with public issues.
• Present your insights and contribute to engaged discussions and struggles over publicly contested issues.

Is this the right program for you?

This program:

• Improves students’ ability to meaningfully work with people who come from a variety of backgrounds and have different types of expertise.
• The Social Sciences Department of Erasmus University Rotterdam ranks the highest of all of the continental European universities in the Shanghai Ranking.

Opportunities after graduating

Master in Sociology (MSc)

In a world shaped by science and technology, advanced and publicly relevant social science is needed to address the unequal ways in which people are affected by technological change, global warming, or the flexibilization of employment. There is an urgent need for people able to understand the logic of how such issues and their publics emerge and evolve.

Whether you are part of a social movement trying to push an issue, or work as a police officer or in a company and are confronted with an issue, you are better equipped to address them when you understand how issues become public. That means you’ll learn to contextualize and dissect the interests at stake, the identities at stake in an issue, and the infrastructures and the forms of imagination of the future that make issues and their publics. To engage with issues ranging from the implications of Big Data to the consequences of global migration, from the politics of climate change to transnational activism, companies, organizations, and institutions are in need of generalists able to ‘broker’ public issues, and provide realistic courses of action for different stakeholders.

This is a state-of-the-art MSc in publicly relevant and critical social science, and it provides a solid basis for career opportunities in a variety of fields. Examples include:

• Strategist or policy officer at an NGO or community group engaged with issues ranging from climate change to technology and privacy;
• Journalist, media advisor, or web editor for a variety of media outlets or companies;
• Researcher in academia, a public think tank, or a social scientific advisory council;
• Consultant for governmental or non-governmental institutions;
• Researcher in a municipality or a ministry;
• Policy officer in a governmental institution.