PRINCIPLES OF SOCIOLOGY

Module ACTORS, CULTURAL PROCESSES AND SOCIAL INSTITUTIONS

The course will be structured through lectures, during which the topics included in the program will be presented and analyzed.

The contents of Institutions of Sociology course have been programmed taking into account the common sociological areas for students enrolled in L40 and L39 classes, with the aim, therefore, of making students of both courses able to operate with the fundamental categories of sociological analysis in a multiplicity of working contexts in the public and private sectors. Taking also into account the preparation needed to pursue studies in a Master's Degree Program in Political and Social Affairs, the topics issues included in the teaching program will be: 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 the process of socialization, the notion of social interaction. Norms and institutions; the deviant behavior; secularization and religious fundamentalisms; family and intimacy relationships.

Text 1: Bagnasco A. Barbagli M. Cavalli A., Corso di Sociologia, Il Mulino, Bologna, 2012; Introduction, chapp: III, V, VI, VIII.

Text 2: Giddens A. Sutton P., Fondamenti di Sociologia, Il Mulino, Bologna, 2014, chap: V, IX.

Sociology and the other social sciences: the hierarchical solution, the residual and the formal one;

The origins of the discipline: the scientific revolution and the industrial revolution;

The foundation of the social order and the problem of change: organicistic and functionalistic models;

Social Change and Class Struggle: Marxian Theorizing;

Weber: conflict and social order;

Action and social structure: individualism and methodological holism;

The unintended effects of social action: from action to structure, from the micro to the macro level;

The links between theory and empirical research;

The great conceptual schemes and medium range theories;

Explanatory research and descriptive research;

The concept of social action: the Weberian typology;

The relevance of the definition of the situation by social actors: Thomas' theorem;

From action to social relationship: a different elementary unit of sociological analysis;

From relationship to social interaction;

Social groups and their properties relating to size, boundaries and their structure;

Status and roles. Differentiation and social density;

Specific roles and widespread roles;

Primary groups and secondary groups; formal and informal groups;

The concept of power and authority: the Weberian definition and its theoretical implications;

Social conflict and its formal properties: Simmel and Coser;

Groups and collective behavior: differential traits;

Panic, crowd and audience: three different examples of collective behavior;

Social networks, their characters and their configurations;

The sociology of everyday life: the rules of coexistence events;

The Goffmanian perspective and its metaphors: fore, backstage, informers and cronies;

Social organization: formal and informal relationships;

The concept of social capital and its relations with the various forms of social organization;

Values: the characteristics of a fundamental conceptual category for sociological analysis;

Universal values ​​and particular values;

Values ​​and value systems: integration and ethical dilemmas;

From values ​​to norms: two analytical levels concerning the orientation of agie;

Adaptation to the rules: expectations and sanctions;

Types of norms: rules, juridical norms, social norms, good manners, ethical codes;

Constitutive rules and regulations;

From norms to institutions: models of behavior and social control;

Learning of social norms: formal learning and internalization; moral norms;

The process of institutionalization and the factors that determine its various forms and its various degrees;

The cultural universals;

Functions and institutions: the AGIL model;

Socialization and social reproduction: the transmission of cultural heritage;

The elements of culture: forms of knowledge, sources of meaning, values, forms of expression;

Cultural evolution: invention, accumulation, dissemination and adaptation;

Basic social skills and specific social skills;

Socialization, inheritance and innatism;

Socialization and learning;

Socialization and identity;

Socialization and basic personality;

Socialization and life stages;

Socialization and social classes;

Primary socialization, attachment and reciprocity;

Secondary socialization: the concept of role set;

Socialization and mass media;

The main theories on personality development;

Socialization continues;

The psychological mechanisms of socialization;

Deviant behavior: defining characters;

The biological theory, the structural tension theory, the social control theory, labeling and rational choice theories;

The theory of Lombroso and Sheldon;

Deviance and anomie: cultural structure and social structure;

Deviance and adaptation to cultural goals: the Mertonian model;

Deviance and social constraints: the theory of social control;

Deviant behavior as a form of adaptation to the expectations of the social environment: subcultural theories;

Deviance and stigma: the role of social control institutions;

Theories of deterrence;

Religion and society: macro and micro sociological interpretative perspectives;

The blurred boundaries between belief and knowledge;

Magic and religion: the different approach to the sacred and the profane;

At the origins of the religious experience: the limit, the chance, suffering, the moral order;

The Marxian interpretation: religious values ​​as a cultural product;

The Marxian interpretation: religion and self-alienation;

Religion and social structure: the Durkheimian perspective;

Tribes, brotherhoods and clans: the worship of the social structure;

Religion and social change: the Weberian theory;

Weber: worldly and ultramundane orientation of the different religions;