Sociology

This course offers an introduction to qualitative research methods in social sciences. Students learn about the advantages and limitations of qualitative research methods and how apply the knowledge to small scale research studies.

This course examines the utopian, dystopian, and ambivalent implications of artificial intelligence. Grounded in the interdisciplinary field of science and technology studies, students will study how bodies, subjectivity, life, households, work, and the environment are being transformed by technoscience and artificial intelligence. It will investigate how artificial intelligence, and technoscience more broadly, blurs the boundaries between humans and machines to equip students with the knowledge and skills to critically analyze historical, social, ethical, economic, and philosophical implications of past, present, and emerging technologies. Topics may include cyborgs, biotechnologies, pharmaceuticals, cyberspace, surveillance, and technosolutionism.

Cultural studies explores everyday life, media and popular culture. It shows us how we can make sense of contemporary culture as producers, consumers, readers and viewers, in relation to our identities and communities. How do cultural texts and practices convey different kinds of meaning and value? Students will be introduced to some key thinkers and approaches in cultural studies and will learn how to analyze cultural forms such as advertising, television, film and popular music.

This course develops students’ core social policy skills, including critical analysis, argument development, and the use of an evidence-informed approach. The course introduces students to key social policy issues including activation policy, universal basic income, and the gender pay gap. Students are challenged to practice and develop the skills they have learned by engaging critically with these topics. Students are supported to critically appraise how explanations of and solutions to social issues may be influenced by analysis of evidence and competing perspectives.

Receiving an adequate level of education can be seen as a fundamental social right. Yet, the extent and ways in which education is provided vary substantially across countries, social groups, and over-time. This course is designed to introduce students to the study of educational inequality and education policy. The course begins by reviewing the main goals, achievements, and outstanding challenges in education policy in the early 21st century. Specifically, it takes a historical perspective to review the significant progress made with respect to providing education to large parts of the world's population and with respect to reducing gender inequality in educational attainment. The course then turns to one key policy challenge of the early 21st century—reducing the inequalities in educational attainment between individuals from different socio-economic backgrounds. It discusses normative arguments for why we may care to understand and address inequality of educational opportunity. Moreover, the course examines the social mechanisms that account for educational inequalities between individuals from different social backgrounds and discusses whether and how policies and social interventions can reduce these educational inequalities. The structure of the course follows the early life-course and educational trajectory of individuals to critically examine educational policies on early childhood education, the notion of "social investment", ability tracking at the secondary level, the function of school autonomy, the effectiveness of education policy to equalize access to elite institutions, the role of large crises — such as the COVID-19 pandemic — in exacerbating existing inequalities, and how education policy can protect children's learning in the face of such crises. The course fosters students' ability to think like a social scientist and to critically approach and examine major issues of educational inequality. It develops the conceptual tools and substantive knowledge to address current questions on educational inequality.

This course is based on a so-called “bottom-up” field approach in order to measure the social and societal effects of public policies in a different way. To illustrate this method, it draws on various visible situations related to migration: resurgence of shantytowns, increase in unaccompanied minors wandering around, etc., in order to analyze the sociological mechanisms at work within migrant groups, host societies, and countries of origin. This method uses social science research tools to be able to evaluate and then propose improvements to the policies and measures put in place. It is an introduction to action research based on a shared field diagnosis facilitating the acceptance of change and social innovation.

This course is part of the Laurea Magistrale degree program and is intended for advanced level students. Enrollment is by permission of the instructor. The course is designed to provide advanced knowledge of fundamental issues of the human experience, such as the origins and persistence of old and new forms of social prejudice and their link with stereotyping and discriminative behaviors. A comprehensive summary and critical analysis of the state of theory and research on the causes and consequences of intergroup prejudice is illustrated. Moreover, similarities and differences among distinct types of prejudice are addressed. The Social Prejudice course involves 2 modules; Social Prejudice I: Basic processes and differences among prejudice, stereotyping and discrimination; Social Prejudice II: General theoretical perspectives, specific domains, methodology and tools, and effects and reactions to social discrimination. By the end of the course students know the theoretical models, the fundamental methods of investigation, and the practical course of actions leading to social discrimination, stereotypes, and social prejudice.

This course offers students unfamiliar with life in Britain an opportunity to explore key aspects of literature, art, and culture in Contemporary Britain (20-21st century) as revealed in plays, novels, poems, films, and scholarly texts. The course is topic-based, with a range of related topics covered under the themes of feminism and multi-culturalism. Each topic is introduced through formal lectures and the use of audio and visual materials. The course facilitates the development of intercultural competence within a diverse cohort in terms of nationality, and students consider frameworks for discussing intercultural competence. The course also includes an external trip related to the themes of the course, for example to a play or exhibition. 

This course provides a deeper understanding of migrant lives, experiences, and emotions in the 20th and 21st century, to give a fuller sense of the varied comparative and transdisciplinary methodologies that can be used in the study of the subject, and to introduce students to research work with a view to thesis writing. The course incorporates varied approaches including chronological, thematic, and theoretical aspects. For example: the relationship between psy disciplines and migration experiences; the emergence of refugee psychiatry and its relationship to broader political contexts; and the politics of humanitarian psychiatry. The course centers around a group of comparative and interdisciplinary case studies. These include displaced persons and forced migration from within and outside Europe after the First and Second World War; dissidents and refugees in Europe; guest workers and post-colonial labor migrants after 1945 in Britain, France, and Germany. The course also incorporates varied methodologies and sources, including printed and unprinted sources, oral history and life-story analysis, quantitative, qualitative, and comparative methods as well as film, memoir, and visual analysis.