GENERAL SOCIOLOGY

Learning Objectives

• CULTURA E SOCIETÀ
  The educational goals associated with the running of the first module can be outlined as an implementation of a plan of study designed to present some of the most important institutional issues of sociology in the different configurations they have taken with respect to those of other social sciences, with particular regard to their theoretical and methodological profiling.
• ISTITUZIONI E MUTAMENTO SOCIALE
  Even the educational goals associated with the running of the second module reckon on the creation of a plan of study to present some important institutional issues of sociology in different configurations that these have taken with respect to those of other social sciences, with particular regard to their theoretical and methodological profiling.
• Social differentiation and inequality
  In the framework of institutional issues of sociology, the course aims to instruct students about the distinctive characters of social differentiation and inequality processes related to gender, age, race and ethnicity. The course aims to foster in students the acquisition of theoretical and methodological skills that enable them to analyze appropriately these processes in contemporary society.
• Social inclusion and social integration
  The module aims to provide students the theoretical coordinates that are necessary to interpret social inclusion and integration issues which western societies are facing because of more and more intense migration processes as a result of an increasingly pervasive globalization. By acquired knowledges we expect that students are able 1) to analyze critically current problems related to the articulation of relationship between identity and otherness, social integration and instances of identity recognition 2) to project empirical researchs on the subject matter.

Detailed Course Content

• CULTURA E SOCIETÀ
  The elements of culture and their relevance for social action; the notion of social structure; the sociological concept of individual and collective social actor, the various stages of socialization, social interaction.
• ISTITUZIONI E MUTAMENTO SOCIALE
  Norms and institutions, the deviant behavior, stratification and social mobility, secularization and religious fundamentalism.
  
  
• Social differentiation and inequality

  In an interdisciplinary perspective and especially in reference to theories of biological matrix, the course involves a study of the main sociological theories in which frame social differentiation and inequality processes found an explanation and their configuration in contemporary society. Specifically, the following aspects are examined: A) Gender Identity, difference and inequality: distinction between sex and gender; essentialism and social constructivism; the sexual division of labor and the status of women in ancient and modern societies; the changes in time and space of gender inequalities in economic, political ed education field; B) the social meaning of different ages; social stratification by age; the phases of the life course from childhood to old age, and variability of their meaning in different eras and societies; C) Racial and ethnic identity, difference and inequality: distinction between race and ethnicity; race: biology or social construction?; The racist doctrines; racial discrimination in modern society; ethnicity and nation; concept of multiethnic and multinational society and State. Covered topics appear preparatory to learning the contents of the fourth module

• Social inclusion and social integration

  The course is focused on social inclusion and integration issues in modern multiethnic Western societies. For this purpose different models of relationship with cultural minorities are examined: enslavement, genocide, transfer, up to the most current models of social inclusion as assimilation, pluralism, multiculturalism (communitarian and pluralist version) and interculturalism. In particular, the different conceptions of the social solidarity bases underlying to the most current models of social inclusion are examined and their respective implications in reference to the safeguard of social integration are compared, considering steadily increasing and especially Islamic migration processes. In this regard, the course reflects on the relationship between fundamental traits of the Western cultural identity (pluralism, individual rights, democracy, secularism) and Islamic cultural identity (lack of secularism, collective rights, holistic individualism) with its fundamentalist drift. And, finally, it compares the multiculturalist social inclusion vision of Islamic neo-traditionalism with the pluralistic vision of liberal Islam, emphasizing their implications on social integration processes.

Textbook Information

• Social differentiation and inequality

  1. Bagnasco A., Barbagli M., Cavalli A., Corso di Sociologia, Il Mulino, Bologna, 2012, Cap. XIII, XIV, XV.

  Suggested readings:

  Connell R., Questioni di genere, Il Mulino, Bologna, 2009.

• Social inclusion and social integration

  2.Sartori G, Pluralismo, multiculturalismo ed estranei, Bur, Milano, 2010.
  3.Donati P , Oltre il multiculturalismo, Laterza, Roma, 2008, pp.3-19.

  Testo 4. Cesareo V., Società multietniche e multiculturalismi, Vita e pensiero, Milano, 2007, Cap. II.
  Testo 5.Guolo R., L’islam è compatibile con la democrazia?, Laterza, Roma, 2007, pp.77-137.
  
  Suggested readings:
  Souad Sbai, L’inganno. Vittime del multiculturalismo, Cantagalli, Siena, 2010.
  Bassam Tibi , Euro-Islam. L’integrazione mancata, Marsilio, 2003.
  Salem E.M., Berti F., Lezioni di cultura islamica, Cantagalli, Siena, 2003.
  Samir Khalil, Islam, Cantagalli, 2008