Urban sociology

Academic Year 2024/2025 - Teacher: CARLO COLLOCA

Expected Learning Outcomes

Through a sociologically oriented approach - problematizing the thought of some classical and contemporary authors with reference to the city - we intend to provide students with the interpretative and methodological tools useful for the analysis of the most recent socio-territorial transformations in their economic dimensions, political, symbolic-cultural and physical-environmental.

Course Structure

Teaching will focus on lectures, seminars on some speciﬁc topics, research case studies and possibly the development of individual and / or group projects. Over at the oral exposition of the topics dealt with, during the course the teacher will make use of IT and audiovisual supports.

Required Prerequisites

Knowledge of classical and contemporary sociological debate, with reference to authors and concepts; how to critically problem the relationship between social action and urban space.

Attendance of Lessons

Frequency is required. There is intermediate test.

Detailed Course Content

Teaching is focused on the following two macro-themes.

SOCIOLOGICAL ANALYSIS OF THE CITY. Through the main theoretical approaches to the study of urban dynamics and the focus on the characteristics assumed by the evolution of the city in the history of the development of societies, the course will aim to stimulate students' reflection and ability to criticize the theories and above all the practices of modern urban transformations, trying to encourage the indispensable sensitivity to identify the problems that characterize today's societies and to hypothesize useful projects to address them.

URBAN SOCIETIES, CULTURAL DIFFERENCES AND LOCAL GOVERNMENT. This part of the teaching will also direct attention to the new social morphology of the city, highlighting the urbanization methods typical of the current phase, among which the processes of urban diffusion have taken on particular importance in the last few decades. It will be highlighted how these centrifugal tendencies, however, are manifested in conjunction with the unfolding of processes of the opposite sign, which - as happens in some important metropolises - are producing the revitalization of the central areas of the large metropolitan areas.

Textbook Information

- C. COLLOCA, “Urbanesimo”, in G. BETTIN LATTES e L. RAFFINI (a cura di), Manuale di sociologia, Cedam, Padova, Vol. II, 2011, pp. 867-905.

- G. NUVOLATI (a cura di), Lezioni di sociologia urbana, il Mulino, Bologna, 2011.

- A. MELA, Sociologia delle città, Carocci, Roma, 2006, soltanto i seguenti capitoli: 3. Economia e società urbana; 4. La città, i conflitti, il governo; 5. Le politiche della città; 6. La città, fenomeno culturale.

Course Planning

	Subjects	Text References
1	Classical and contemporary sociological theories on the city	C. COLLOCA, “Urbanesimo”, in G. BETTIN LATTES e L. RAFFINI (a cura di), Manuale di sociologia, Cedam, Padova, Vol. II, 2011, pp. 867-905; G. NUVOLATI (a cura di), Lezioni di sociologia urbana, il Mulino, Bologna, 2011.
2	The concepts and methods for the study of socio-territorial changes	- A. MELA, Sociologia delle città, Carocci, Roma, 2006, only the following chapters: 3. Economia e società urbana; 4. La città, i conflitti, il governo; 5. Le politiche della città; 6. La città, fenomeno culturale.

Learning Assessment

Learning Assessment Procedures

Written exam with open questions lasting ninety minutes.

Examples of frequently asked questions and / or exercises

A) Rational action and lifestyles in the western city.

B) The characteristics of the Fordist city.

C) Max Weber's thought on the eastern city.

Degree Course in

Sociology and Social Work