Dr Fabio Battaglia

This course is compulsory on the BSc in International Social and Public Policy, BSc in International Social and Public Policy and Economics and BSc in International Social and Public Policy with Politics. This course is not available as an outside option nor to General Course students.

The course aims to equip students with the skills and knowledge needed to produce a dissertation which demonstrates their ability to conduct independent research and develop their own arguments in an academic, impartial way.

Students will be required to submit a dissertation of 8,000 words on a topic to be approved by the candidate's Academic Mentor. The dissertation is designed to allow a detailed and thorough exploration of a social policy topic that is of interest to the student and within the field of the degree programme. It may involve original fieldwork, or the critical analysis and appraisal of existing literature.

Students will be allocated an Academic Mentor who will supervise their dissertation. In addition to individual supervision meetings, there will be compulsory lectures in both the Autumn and Winter Term to help students plan and structure their work on the dissertation, as well as additional optional advice/troubleshooting sessions. In the Winter Term, there will also be compulsory presentation sessions: all students will be expected to make a brief presentation on their topic and will receive feedback from attending faculty and peers.

All teaching will be in accordance with the LSE Academic Code (https://info.lse.ac.uk/current-students/lse-academic-code) which specifies a "minimum of two hours taught contact time per week when the course is running in the Autumn Term (AT) and/or Winter Term (WT)". Further information will be provided by the Course Convenor in the first lecture of the course.

This course is taught in both AT and WT.

Students are required to agree their dissertation title with their Academic Mentor and submit it to the Department at a date which will be set by the Department. 

Students will be expected to draw extensively from the reading they have undertaken throughout their programme of study.

Suggested reading on conducting research projects in Social Policy:

Alcock, P. et al, 2016. The Student's Companion to Social Policy. Chichester: John Wiley & Sons Ltd. (5th edition).

Brinkmann, S. and Kvale, S., 2018. Doing Interviews. London: SAGE Publications Ltd. (2nd edition).

Bryman, A., 2016. Social Research Methods. Oxford: Oxford University Press (5th edition).

Robson, C. and McCartan, K., 2016. Real World Research. Hoboken: Wiley-Blackwell (4th edition).

Seale, C., 2017. Researching Society and Culture. Thousand Oaks: SAGE Publications Ltd. (4th edition).

Thomas, G., 2017. How To Do Your Research Project. London: SAGE Publications Ltd. (3rd edition).

Yin, R. K., 2003. Case Study Research. Design and Methods. London: SAGE Publications Ltd. (3rd edition).

Dissertation (100%, 8000 words) in the ST.

Submission is due in ST.  Precise details on date of submission, format and presentation will be issued by the Department.