Sociology and Tourism
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Format MLA
Volume of 1100 – 2200 pages (6 pages)
Assignment type : Essay
Description
The written assignment
The aim of the written assignment is to demonstrate that you have understood the disciplines discussed. The assignment will have the form of a wiki article. This article should be a summarizing description of the relevant perspective of tourism. In this description you must give an informed and critical review of the basic tenets in each disciplinary perspective. The wiki article should be just like any other article on a Wiki. Following the concept of Wikis, the reader must be able to grasp all basic information in order to have a clear understanding of the relevant perspective. It is advisable that you use sections with headings to guide the reader through the information provided. The text must be informative in content and attractive in the eye.
Try to avoid giving just a summary of the chapters you have read. Try to include more sources and find the issues you want to highlight as most interesting for the reader. Communicate interesting issues and competing arguments for the discussed disciplines emphasising their contribution on the body of knowledge for tourism as well as its limitations.
The length of the text should be around 3000 words (for both disciplines, so approximately 1500 words for each discipline). An apparent source is the relevant chapter from the Holden textbook but additional resources are also required. Each student in the group should contribute with at least one more academic sources (book chapter and/or research article) used in writing the wiki article. So, if a group of four students, eight additional academic sources should be used (i.e. different than the course literature in all modules). When you use other than academic sources in your assignment, you must assess those sources critically. Especially if you make references to web pages, you should consider who is responsible for the content, if there is any author presented, if the content is reviewed in any way etc. When you write the text you must use in-text references as well as a reference list in the end of the text following the principles of academic writing.
Questions to address
Seminar 1:
Sociology and Tourism
1. Give a brief description of sociology. Describe the main contribution of sociology to tourism research. Give examples of phenomenon that may be studied within sociology.
2. Describe the Tourism system from a functionalism and conflict theory perspective.
3. Work and alienation describe the theories briefly and what they have contributed to tourism studies
4. Commodification and semiotics: discuss the influence of industrialization on travel motivation. Develop the notion of choice of destination and semiotics.
5. Social exclusion and marginalization: Describe the concept of citizenship connected to social exclusion and marginalization.
6. Barriers to travel: What kind of factors do you think can result in exclusion from tourism? Give examples.
Psychology and tourism
1. Give a brief description of psychology. Describe the main contribution of psychology to tourism research. Give examples of phenomena that may well be studied within psychology.
2. Several researchers have used different theories from psychology to study tourism. Which is, to your perception, the research that has contributed the most in understudying tourist behaviour and why?
3. Drive-reduction theory: Briefly explain the theory. What are the pros and cons in using drive-reduction theory to understand tourist motivation and behaviour?
4. Optimal arousal and flow: Briefly describe these two concepts. How have they contributed to the understanding of tourist motivations?
5. The travel career: What is the travel career? How does Pearce’s leisure ladder of needs relate to Maslow’s hierarchy of needs? What is its contribution to understanding tourist motivation?
6. Personality: What is personality? Explain the personality theory as a predictor of travel behaviour.
7. Attitudes and environmental psychology: What are the attitudes and how can they affect tourist behaviour? How can attitudes towards the environment affect the activities undertaken o the destination?
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