Sociology

This course introduces population issues, concepts, theories and methods by encompassing the entire field of demography, including principle and practice. It offers an overview of various aspects of demographic growth and transition relating to changes in health and mortality, fertility, migration, age structure, urbanization, family and household structure. This course examines the relations between population and development and their potential consequences from a sociological, economic and geographical perspective. Other topics include global variation in population size and growth, various demographic perspectives and their modern implications, environmental impacts, and population policy. Special emphasis is placed on demographic transition in Hong Kong and its neighborhood region.

This course introduces the main perspectives offered by sociology on collective action, or action by several people, with the related concepts of social movements, social conflicts, social groups, and social classes. The course divides sociological literature on collective action according to the authors and major trends in this field. Classical thinkers, both well-known (Marx and Weber) and lesser-known (Simmel, Michels, and Tarde), are first presented and then explored in greater depth. Next, a series of contemporary trends and authors are examined. Two recent French cases are also discussed: the competition between two types of divisions in the representation of French society in a process of extreme right-wing shift beginning in the 1980s, and the “yellow vest” movement (2018-2019). The conclusion opens up two contemporary debates: the question of intersectionality, and the differences between the sociology of collective action and conspiracy theories.

This course introduces students to a critical understanding of how crime and harm are represented through different media. These may include: TV, film, radio (e.g., documentaries, podcasts, drama, true-crime series), text (e.g., crime fiction, crime biographies, policy documents, music lyrics), visual culture (e.g., art and sculpture, graphics, court sketches, photojournalism, architecture, graffiti, theatre, advertising), news media (e.g., online, broadcast, print), and social media (e.g., trial by social media, citizen journalism, livecasting offending, performance crimes)

This course introduces students to political sociology which is broadly concerned with understanding such phenomena as power, state and society relations, and the nature and consequences of social conflict. The main topics are issues pertaining to modern society and capitalist development, referring to diverse cases from Western Europe to Southeast Asia. Students also examine the state, civil society and societal movements, including that of labor, and such contentious contemporary issues as economic globalization, US global hegemony, and terrorism.

This course examines the relationship between society and the built environment, using a sociological perspective to analyze the city and urban phenomena. It discusses the main theoretical contributions and lines of research that have facilitated the interpretation and analysis of various social problems in the urban context.

This intermediate level course reviews the main theoretical considerations of cultural constructs, stressing the relevance of the role of otherness and the dimensions of intersectionality. The course starts from a critical and current analysis of identity in order to seek proposals for dialogue and peace policies aimed at building a cosmopolitan vision of the human being. 

This course does not require prior knowledge or experience. It is desirable however that those who are interested in taking it, show curiosity for intercultural dialogue, critical thinking and the development of capacities around collaborative learning.  

Working with the local community, this course builds on the communication and leadership skills necessary to lead action for social change. This practical work is facilitated by the charity Citizens UK, who match students with local campaigns or voluntary organizations. Exploring issues that impact various communities, students find links between their discipline and ways in which ‘community work’ can be undertaken. In workshops, students  engage critically with current debates about social justice, analyze historical and contemporary campaigns, and build practical skills (storytelling, negotiation, and delivering leadership speeches) to make positive social change.

This course introduces students to important theoretical tools and conceptual frameworks developed in the social sciences. Students use these tools to uncover the economic, political, and other forces that shape the design process, explore how values and norms are built into technologies, track the effects of technologies on society, and use these insights to experiment with, and hopefully improve, design practices and outcomes. The goal is to enable social scientific reflection on and redirection of design practices at an early stage of technological production. The course focuses on important social scientific concepts, for example ‘network’ and ‘audience,’ each of which will be covered in two phases. First, students study and evaluate key social scientific ideas that explain the social dimensions of technological design through readings, class discussions, and written assignments. Second, students use those concepts to make experimental interventions, for example through archival research or fieldwork, video and image-based documentation, and creative experiments with design, in an effort to “design for a better world.”

This course introduces various population theories, concepts and facts to develop a critical understanding of the inter-relatedness of the demographic, social, cultural, economic and political issues between Hong Kong and Mainland China and its sustainable development.

The media plays an extremely influential role in the public’s conceptions of crime and order. This course is designed to look at the different ways in which the media shapes our ideas and responses to crime. The course is divided into two main sections. The first half of the course examines representations of crime in different media forms and theoretical explanations for why crime is portrayed in particular ways. The second half of the course focuses on the representation of crime in popular culture, particularly in films and novels.