Course 2018-2019 a.y.

Key Concepts:

• Status, Authority, Community.
• Socialization, Family and Kinship.
• Groups and Networks.

Inequality and Mobility:

• Poverty and Inequality.
• Social Stratification and Social Mobility.
• Gender and Discrimination.
• Global Stratification and Population Studies.

The Sociology of Economic Life:

• The Economy as an Instituted Process.
• The Sociology of Markets and Firms.

The State and Globalization:

• The State and its Critics.
• Welfare States in Comparative Perspective.
• Globalization and Challenges to the State.

• Think sociologically about world phenomena, differentiate sociological thinking from other discourses, and use conceptual tools from sociology to explain social dynamics.

• Apply sociological reasoning and sociological tools such that they can formulate better explanations for social phenomena that offered by other social science discourses.
• Interpret data in ways that problematize overly simply solutions and generate strong explanatory frameworks.

• Face-to-face lectures
• Exercises (exercises, database, software etc.)
• Individual assignments

Exercises include evaluation of highly influential works in political science and political sociology to understand:

• The assumptions underlying the work.
• The empirical bases of the arguments.
• The reasons for the works influence.

Individual assignments include:

• A seminar report.
• A short paper focusing on theoretical and methodological integration around a particular course theme.

1. An exercise (25%)
2. A short paper (25%)
3. Two partial exams (50%)

Final written exam (100%)

Students are provided with a selection of readings on the course Bboard site.

First part

• What is Sociology?
• Sociological perspectives.
• Asking and answering sociological questions.
• Research methods.
• Globalization.
• Environment.
• Cities and urban life.
• Work and The Economy.

Second part:

• Socialization and social interactions.
• The life course.
• Families.
• Health.
• Stratification and social class.
• Poverty.
• Global inequality
• Gender and sexuality.
• Race and ethnicity.
• Religion.
• Education.
• Crime and deviance.
• Digital revolution.

• Autonomously and critically search, and understand, sociological research on a wide range of topics, with diverse methodological approaches, linking this research to wider knowledge across the spectrum of social sciences.

• Cast sociological explanatory hypotheses on a wide range of social phenomena, in particular concerning policy-relevant issues, and to sketch research designs useful to test such hypotheses.

• Face-to-face lectures
• Exercises (exercises, database, software etc.)
• Interactive class activities (role playing, business game, simulation, online forum, instant polls)

• Exercises: there is one class as lab-session in which we are analyzing the European Social Survey dataset using the software STATA and applying some basic statistical tools.
• Interactive class activities: in almost every lecture there are interactive class activties, such as role playing, puzzles to be solved in group, designing online surveys.

Students can choose between two options:

1. A written exam or two partial exams (each with a 2/5 weight towards the overall grade), plus a short paper, written individually or together with another student (with a 1/5 weight towards the overall grade).
2. A written exam, either taken through two partial exams (each with a 1/2 weight towards the overall grade) or one general exam (with a 100% weight towards the overall grade).

• Exams: written exams includes both short answers and essay-style questions. The questions cover theory, and interpretation of the results of applied research. The exam cover all topics of the course. Material covered in the lectures, in the text book and other set readings may be included in the exam.
• Project (optional): the project may be conducted by students working alone or in couple. It is worth 1/5 of your grade. Students working in couple receive the same grade. The grade you obtain in the project is valid for one-year cycle. The maximum length of the project is 1,500 words. You are required to design a sociological research project that can be carried out in two alternative ways:

1. Applied project: by using secondary data (Europena Social Survey dataset), statistical analyses, interpreting the results and drawing independent conclusions based on sociological theory and hypotheses.
2. Critical review project: by making a review of the literature on a specific topic; comparing results from two papers that adopt different theoretical approaches, and/or methods, and/or study different populations (e.g. countries); highlighting similarities and/or differences; drawing independent conclusions.

• Book: A. GIDDENS, P.W. SUTTON, Sociology,  Polity, 8th Edition.
• Readings: a set of readings and lecture slides are available on Bboard.