Sociology

This course introduces the study of educational inequality and education policy. It begins by reviewing the main goals, achievements, and outstanding challenges in education policy at the beginning of the 21st century. Specifically, it takes a historical perspective to review the progress made with respect to providing education to large parts of the world's population and with respect to reducing gender inequality in education. The course then turns to one key policy challenge of the early 21st century: reducing the inequalities in education between individuals from different socio-economic backgrounds. It examines the social processes that may account for these educational inequalities and discusses whether and how different policies can address them.

Through the lens of gender and sexuality, this course analyzes how knowledge, history, policies, and norms are produced, configured, mediated, and governed. It examines some of the basic concepts and theoretical perspectives of studies on women, gender, and sexuality. Additionally, this course discusses a set of thematic areas that hold an enduring, if shifting, place within the field as a whole and that are also key to the regulation and transgression of gender, sexuality, and intersecting axes of difference. 

In line with notions from the Gender Revolution, gender inequalities within Western societies have narrowed or even reversed in some areas in the last half-century. For instance, women’s overall labor market participation has increased dramatically. Nevertheless, women have maintained primary responsibility for domestic tasks stalling overall progress towards gender equality. In the first half of each session, we synthesize the literature on gender inequalities in the labor market and the family focusing on heterosexual couples and aspects such as the division of labor, occupation, and income. To this end, we also discuss the underlying theoretical explanations and assumptions about such inequalities and the relevance of the country context. The second half of each session takes place in the PC pool. Here we explore gender inequalities using German panel data. We start with a brief introduction to the statistical software and the dataset before exploring gender inequalities descriptively and using regression approaches. Due to the complexity of the substantial topic, we predominantly focus on economic gender inequalities in these applied sessions. No prior knowledge of panel data is assumed, but a general interest in and knowledge of quantitative methods is expected.

Students develop their understanding of many dimensions of the relationship between gender and social policy. In the first section of the course, students become familiar with the fundamental concepts necessary for gender policy analysis, including how gender operates as a social structure and its intersectional relationship to other social structures such as race, class, and disability. Students develop their understanding of the concept of patriarchy in both its familial and non-familial meanings and ideas about post-patriarchal welfare states. Students learn about prevailing approaches to measuring gender inequalities, including indicators. Next, students focus on gendered typologies of welfare states and the importance of varieties of capitalism to gender inequalities in work, organizations, and families. In the final part of the course, students focus on how the concept of care is becoming increasingly significant for policymakers and private sector employers.

Looking at art sociologically involves questioning conventional understandings of "art" and "the artist." Who has the authority to decide what counts as art, and what social conditions allow for the idea of the "artist" to emerge? The sociology of the arts also entails investigating cultural institutions. How do organizations (such as academies, conservatories, companies, galleries and festivals) become established, and how do they shape artistic innovation? To see the arts from a sociological perspective means examining the relation between the arts and society. How is artistic activity affected or redefined by macro social processes (such as globalization), and what role can the arts play in micro-level processes that foster social cohesion, identity formation, and active citizenship? Through an exploration of theoretical perspectives and empirical studies, this course considers the role of art in the social, and the role of the social in art.

This course presents the historical background, development, and present-day challenges of the Norwegian welfare state. It examines the role of values and norms in shaping the services offered by the welfare state, as well as how the structure of the state in turn shapes societal norms and values. The course follows how political debates concerning the country's welfare programs have shifted in response to accelerated immigration, changing gender roles, and shifting employment patterns. It pays special attention to universal welfare services, work-family balance, and the Introduction Programme (Norway’s integration package), as these are some of the distinctive features of the Norwegian welfare state. Additional modules on education, healthcare, childcare, corrections, and labor market policy demonstrate values and norms in practice, as well as highlight the challenges that increased globalization presents to a state welfare system. The course puts emphasis on classroom discussion and student participation with the aim of enabling students to make a comparative analysis of social structures and institutions in their own and other countries.

This course covers the role of revolutions in shaping history. From the Cold War, to the “new world order” following the end of the Cold War, to the present day, the course considers how and why revolutions happen, what constitutes a revolution, and how revolutions achieve (or fail to achieve) social and political reform.

This interdisciplinary course explores classic literature and contemporary perspectives on reproduction from the perspectives of history, sociology, anthropology, and law. It examines the crucial role reproduction plays in how relations between nations are negotiated, both symbolically and materially. From colonial to metropolitan households, notably via military contexts, the “domestic” has been re-signified by the transnational: nannies, international adoption, and gestational surrogacy have historical links with 19th and 20th centuries' wars. Focusing on the exchanges and connections between the economic, the political, and the intimate, it examines how these increasingly global processes affect individuals, families, and (imagined) communities from multiple lenses: ethnicity and race, nation, class, and gender. It considers how notions of kinship, citizenship, and human rights have become the subject of intense scrutiny, notably through public debates on private and state management of collective life through (bio)technologies of measurement and intervention. Case studies range from analysis of gender dynamics of armed rebellions in Africa to reproductive politics in the United States. Key concepts and policies pertaining to biopolitics, birthing, welfare programs, domestic labor, marriage, and care work are discussed.

This course begins by focusing on the theories of rhetoric to trace the rise and fall of rhetorical citizenship, the development of the concept, and its challenges in rhetoric-related discussions over the past twenty years. The study of the current intersections between rhetoric and citizenship includes discussions of the deliberative democracy and the relationship between democracy and dissent, debate, protest, anti-citizenship, social movements, civic engagement, and resistance. The course explores the relationship between science, politics, and the public, and includes topics such as climate change and pandemics. It involves lectures, debates, group work, and fieldwork, and includes oral presentations, the production of a podcast section, and a workshop on the exam assignment. The course creates a multi-language learning environment for the comfort of all participants with an active-learning approach to teaching and engagement expected during each class meeting.