SOC1011 Sociological Analysis of Mental Health Care in Ireland – Group Essay

1) Continuous assessment (CA): Group Essay (60% of the final mark)

The CA is a Group Essay, which assesses students’ understanding of sociological perspectives and their development of a sociological imagination. The essay will describe and discuss two concrete, real-life experiences (RLE) of mental illness and/or mental health care (MI/MHC) in contemporary Irish society by drawing on sociological concepts and theories discussed in class lectures.
Students will undertake the essay in GROUPS OF FOUR. Group members will get the same mark for the essay. All students should sign up for groups (on Loop) by Friday 21 February 2025. Groups should discuss the preparation of their essays during dedicated Group Essay Clinics (week 27); booking is required. The essay should be around 2000 words (min 1500 words); formatted in Times New Roman, 12 pts font; with 1.5 line spacing; include page numbers; and be saved in PDF under the name “Group X_SOC1011_2025”. Please staple the essay; DO NOT insert it in plastic covers!.
The essay should have the following structure AND include headings for each of its sections, i.e., Introduction, Description, Discussion, Conclusion, & References

Signed Declaration on plagiarism (for the paper version of the CA, please see form here)

Title page.

This should include the title and authors of the essay. The title should be evocative of the content and main argument of the essay. Formulate an original title; do not just copy the title of your sources. The authors of the essay are the members of the group.

Introduction.

This should include a brief description of 1) the two chosen real-life experiences (1-2 sentences); 2) the selected sociological concepts which you will use in your discussion, 3) your sources [for 1) &2)], and 4) the main argument of your essay – what are the two RLEs showing about the selected sociological concepts and how do the 1^st contribute to our understanding of the 2^nd? (1-2 sentences). Use proper IN-TEXT references to indicate your sources in this section & throughout the essay (150- 200 words).

Description.

Students should describe two real-life experiences of MI/MHC, by including enough details for readers not familiar with the described situations to be able to understand them (namely, who did what when, where, and how, and in what social context). Use the narrative format, i.e., present the experiences as stories located over a particular time & place. If you include details about past events in the life of a patient or mental health professional, order them in chronological order (500 words each/total 1000 words).

Discussion.

Students should critically analyse the two real-life experiences from the perspective of selected sociological concepts. This involves comparing (i.e., seeking similarities and differences between) how the two real-life experiences illustrate, challenge, or improve our understanding of the selected sociological concepts. Students should display thorough understanding of the concepts (based on class lectures) before analytically applying them to the chosen experiences (5-600 words).

Conclusion.

This should include 1) a short summary of the argument of the essay, namely what the two real-life experiences show about the selected sociological concepts; and 2) the essay’s contribution to your learning experience in this module as well as to your future professional practice (200 words).

References.

This section should include a list of full references for all your sources, sorted in alphabetical order. Please follow the referencing guidelines provided here. The reference list does not count towards the word count of your essay.

Please keep in mind that this is NOT an exercise in reading and summarising academic articles or books about mental health issues, so do not use real-life experiences drawn from academic studies. All essays should display critical analysis and argument, not just personal opinion and ideas. They should therefore refer to relevant class lectures (and required readings) and use sociological rather than colloquial language.

The marking of the essay will assess your ability to 1) select and adequately describe two real-life experiences of MI/MHC; 2) select and thoroughly understand relevant sociological concepts; and 3) critically analyse the two RLEs in light of selected sociological concepts. Please see the CA essay rubrics provided at the end of this document (p.4), as well as SOC1011 Writing Tips and Example CA Essay 2025 available on Loop. Also on Loop (at the end of the last topic, ‘CA essays’) I have included several URL links to tips for improving your academic writing practice.

Finding real-life experiences of mental illness and/or mental health care

To do that, you should use one of these two methods:

1. search for newspaper articles on MI/MHC in Ireland in the Nexis database available at the DCU Library. ‘A-Z databases’-> L -> LexisNexis -> ‘Nexis UK (business and news)’ -> ‘News’ (in the upper horizontal option bar) -> ‘Advanced search’; ‘Publication’ -> Irish newspaper (e.g., Irish Times, Irish Independent, etc.); ‘Date’: more recent years; ‘Length’: more than 1000 words. ‘Terms’: ‘mental health (care/services)’/’mental illness/ depression/anxiety/psychosis/schizophrenia etc., AND ‘story/narrative’ or selected sociological concepts, e.g., ‘stigma’, ‘deinstitutionalisation’ etc. Exclude articles about MH studies, reports, or policies; select only those offering real-life stories of how real people experience MI/MHC. Select articles above 1000 words
2. look for examples of MI/MHC in the personal experience of people you know personally, or again in your personal observations during Clinical Practice. In writing them down, you need to protect the identity of the people involved in these experiences by changing their names. Include only those details that you are happy to share with other people.

Beware that many personal accounts of MI/MHC stress individual factors (i.e., psychological, or genetic). In this module we focus instead on social factors. Select your sources and RLEs by first checking if they provide enough details on the when, where, who, what and how of the described experiences, including, most importantly, on the social positioning of those involved in the chosen experiences in relation to:

1. social divisions of class (i.e., in terms of people’s occupation, income & education level; whether they are employed, retired, unemployed or inactive), gender (i.e., male, female, etc.), marital status (i.e., married, single, etc.) and ethnicity (i.e. native Irish, members of ethnic minorities such as Travellers or migrants, etc.);
2. social groups & social institutions (e.g., families, groups of friends, neighbourhoods, schools and universities, workplaces, hospitals, churches, political parties, etc.).

In the Description, explain a) how people’s social positioning (i.e. their location in social divisions, social groups & social institutions) defines social expectations on their behaviour (social roles) and informs their access to material and structural resources needed to deal with MI/MHC (for patients) and engage in MHC work (for MH professionals), and b) how, in turn, these expectations and resources impact patients’ MH status and access to MHC, MHC professionals’ work in MHC institutions, and/or the power relations between patients and MH professionals. In doing this, you may get inspiration from your answers to the ‘Social positioning exercise’ done in class

Selecting sociological concepts

These must be relevant for understanding the chosen real-life experiences and are to be selected from the concepts discussed in class lectures. You may combine concepts & theories from several topics addressed in the module (ideally between two and three). The most important is to thoroughly understand and then use them to critically discuss the chosen real-life experiences.

Examples of sociological concepts:

controlled and uncontrolled ab/normality; stereotyping, stigma, labelling, spoiled identity, strategies of impression management, social rejection/isolation/exclusion, (institutional) discrimination; psychiatry and social closure, psychiatry and power, medicalisation, consumerism, managerialism, healthcare marketisation; institutional control, total institutions, mortification of the self, degradation rituals, de/re/institutionalisation, revolving door, social isolation in MH organisations, health professionals’ migration; MH inequalities between social classes/genders/ethnic groups; material deprivation, material living conditions (e.g. employment, housing, neighbourhoods, etc.), social roles (e.g. un/employed, woman, man, etc.) & social resources (e.g. social capital) and MH & access to MHC; professional labelling, (institutional) racism; class/gender/ethnicity-dependent  treatment of MI people in healthcare settings.

To demonstrate a thorough understanding of sociological concepts, in the Discussion you should define and use not only more general, ‘umbrella’, concepts (e.g., stigma) but also more specific, fine-grained ones (e.g., spoiled identity, enacted stigma, strategies of impression management, etc.). To go even deeper, you should also discuss the larger social processes in which the described RLE may take part (e.g., stigmatising and labelling, social discrimination, medicalisation, marketization, professional dominance, de/re/ institutionalisation, etc.).