Sociology

How do social divisions and differences shape our identities, actions, and life-chances? This course provides an introduction to key debates in contemporary sociology, examining the forces that drive social stratification and the construction of social identity. In this course, students gain a critical understanding of current research and analysis in the study of social inequalities around class, race, and gender, exploring how sociology helps us to address topical real-world issues. The course centers on the ways in which power relations, patterns of social stratification and inequality, and diverse identities are shaped in contemporary societies – focusing on structural divisions, social movements, and everyday experiences and identities in different international contexts.

This course introduces students to two ways of making sense of public health. The first is by exploring some of the key sites that are central to the making of public health. The second is through acknowledging that whilst public health (and its sidekick, epidemiology, the study of health across populations) sounds like it would be about actually existing people, it is often about people at the aggregate. In other words, statistics. This course takes a different approach: students study the observable behavior and attitudes of actually existing people—whether in the present or the past. This course introduces students to some key research methodologies in the social sciences and humanities-doing fieldwork, using archives, and unlocking the mysteries of university libraries in order to enable students to understand and master key concepts in the anthropology, history, and social science of life, death, and illness as part of the practice of medicine; to familiarize students provide students with key debates in the anthropology, history, and social science of life, death, and illness; to familiarize students with how medical understandings of life, death, and illness have changed over time; to familiarize students with how medical practice and understanding of life, death, and illness differ across cultures.

This course aims to reflect on ideology, the construction of identities, and the representations of facts and languages ​​that emerge in hegemonic neoliberal discourses (focusing on multiple areas of society: health, culture, interpersonal relationships, labor relations, digital communications, etc.) It also seeks to develop critical intercultural competence, focusing on a key question: what is culture? Clichés, cultural misunderstandings, stereotypes, and prejudices surrounding identities are examined. This course is taught in Spanish and a minimum level of B2 Spanish language background is required.

This course examines the ideas, policies, and practices surrounding education and learning with children and young people outside of formal school-based settings. The couse looks at diverse approaches to informal education, including youth work, play work, social action, social pedagogy, and educational work in other settings such as museums, libraries, science centers, and outdoors. What these approaches have in common is a child-centered or youth-centered ethos; a holistic approach to learning; a central focus on anti-oppressive practice; and a high value placed on respectful and trusting relationships between learners and staff. The course considers what out-of-school practices offer to children and young people, reflects on the vital role of informal educators in such settings, and discusses how policy can support and/or create challenging conditions for learning out of school.