Sociology

This course examines the historical and cultural development of the United Kingdom and the United States, focusing on key institutions, social changes, and political events. Topics include the British monarchy, empire, and industrialization, as well as U.S. colonization, independence, civil war, and global influence. Emphasis is placed on understanding each country's evolution within its sociopolitical context.

The course focuses on the linguistic, pragmatic, and cultural contrasts between English and Spanish, providing the tools and methods needed to analyze differences across grammar, discourse, and usage. It also explores how language reflects and shapes cultural and social identities in the United Kingdom and the United States, with an emphasis on post-1945 developments. Topics include regional and social language variation, cultural norms, and key sociopolitical issues related to language use and diversity.

This course offers an introduction to Sociology with a focus on contemporary society, emphasizing the impact of digitalization, communication, and globalization on social structures and human behavior. It explores key sociological concepts—such as social class, politics, and organizations—while integrating newer perspectives centered on meaning, symbolism, and identity. With an interdisciplinary approach, the course uses analytical tools to understand complex social dynamics, especially as they relate to criminology in today's rapidly evolving world.

This course focuses on the study and practical use of English vocabulary and communication strategies specific to the field of Social Work. It includes grammar review and develops oral and written skills for professional contexts such as interviews, reports, meetings, and presentations. Topics cover key areas of Social Work including healthcare, families, children, the elderly, and the prison system.

This foundational course offers an introduction to the origins, development, and current profile of the Social Work profession. It examines the evolution of social assistance, the influence of historical and cultural contexts, and the emergence of Social Work as a discipline in both global and Spanish settings. This course explores key theories, ideological frameworks, and ethical principles that guide professional practice today.

This course helps liberal arts students to develop their skills of analysis and understanding. Students do so both individually and in teams. Students focus on topical or real-life events and explore them using a wide range of methods and approaches linked to the arts, humanities and social sciences, including media analysis, statistical analysis, textual analysis and visual analysis. This course is built around a stake holder meeting, which explores a specific topic (potentially based on a recent real-world example). It involves the introduction to what a stake holder meeting is; introduction to case studies and modes of analysis; introduction to group work and team theory; introduction to presentation of argument and analysis in essay form.

This course explores the profound social, political, and cultural transformations brought about by digital technologies. It introduces key concepts and theories of the digital society while situating them in concrete case studies. Particular attention is given to Japan, which provides distinctive examples of platform cultures, governance models, and digital transformations that often diverge from the dominant narratives of the United States, China, and Europe. The course emphasizes both the global dynamics of digital media and the need to understand local contexts.
 

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)