Sociology

This seminar course focuses on globalization and the development of education, especially the effect that globalization and development have on societies and education systems in Asia. The course explores the roles and activities of agencies such as the UN, the World Bank, JICA, and grassroots NGOs as well as their impact on education in the developed and developing countries of East and Southeast Asia.

This course seeks to make students familiar with the main controversies that are present in urban sociology with particular attention to Brazilian cities. Topics covered include: origins of modern western cities; industrial cities, large cities and metropolises; the Chicago School; Marxism and cities; welfare cities and urban planning; cities and disorganized capitalism; urban dimensions; social movements; the concept of global city; rebellion and change.

The course presents the major questions and themes around which the social sciences have built a view of psychiatry and mental health. It discusses mental illnesses and societies, including the history of mental illness in our societies, the link between mental illnesses and social dynamics, and social distribution of mental illnesses and disorders. The course then reviews the sociology of mental illness and the mentally ill, including the experience of the illness, social and political treatment of the sick, and social mobilization around the illness. It explores new epidemics of mental health disorders (Autism, ADHD, depression, stress), the role of diagnostic tools and pharmaceutical laboratories, and social demand for mental health. The course then covers the sociology of psychoanalysis (theories, market, public, professional trajectories); asylum, coercion, and consent (organization, confinement, patient rights, ethics); and the political uses of psychiatry in a totalitarian situation (Soviet Russia, control of slaves, elimination of dissidents).

The course is designed for students to learn the concept of service learning and experience service activities as a direct experience. It requires students to engage in volunteer experience In addition to the direct “service” experience, students engage in (i) Self-directed Learning, (ii) Peer-to-peer Learning, and (iii) Experiential Learning. All students are required to join dialogue and group-work in order to reflect on their own service actions and strategy.

This course focuses on the climate crisis and, more broadly, the ecological issues, environmental struggles, and social movements that participate in it. It studies how sociology has taken hold of ecological problems (subjects, issues, methodologies), notions and concepts (risks, Anthropocene, transition/transformation, environmental inequalities, justice), and theoretical frameworks to identify the postures (scientific, ethical, committed, neutral) endorsed by sociologists. The course first reinscribes these current dynamics of mobilizations and research in a double chronology: that of environmental struggles and that of the constitution of a sociological field dedicated to the environment. It then considers recent works on environmental policies and controversies relating to industrial and agricultural pollution to illustrate scientific results and actions that sociological approaches can produce on issues of environmental justice.

This course explores the debates and social research evidence around personal relationships in contemporary society. The course mainly draws on sociological and anthropological scholarship. Students learn about the interplay between intimate life and social organization, to understand better how wider social forces shape the most personal of experiences. Drawing on scholarship from across the globe, the course explores how intimacy and love differ across the cultural, socio-economic, and political contexts in which individuals live. The course explores different kinds of intimate relationships, whether romantic, family, or friendship based. Sexuality is explored as a practice of intimacy. 

This course offers a study of the main contributions of sociology on the processes of structuring contemporary social inequality. It examines various axes of inequality such as class, gender, ethnicity, and age in western patriarchal capitalist societies.

This course covers inequalities related to race, ethnicity, gender, and class in contemporary societies. Topics include social exclusion and spatial/urban segregation; diversity in the city; urban social and cultural movements; and social inclusion. It also looks at the specificity of the Brazilian case and how it compares to different national urban contexts.

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.