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2020/2021

Introduction to Sociology

Code: 101275 ECTS Credits: 6
Degree Type Year Semester
2500256 Social and Cultural Anthropology FB 1 1
The proposed teaching and assessment methodology that appear in the guide may be subject to changes as a result of the restrictions to face-to-face class attendance imposed by the health authorities.

Contact

Name:
Miquel Fernández González
Email:
Miquel.Fernandez@uab.cat

Use of Languages

Principal working language:
catalan (cat)
Some groups entirely in English:
No
Some groups entirely in Catalan:
Yes
Some groups entirely in Spanish:
No

Teachers

Marta Rovira Martínez

Prerequisites

There are no specific prerequisites to take this course

Objectives and Contextualisation

The main objective of the course is to offer discursive resources (theoretical and methodological) that allow you to start in the sociological imagination, helping you to analyze and understand how the structure of human interdependencies has changed (from modernity to the present day) and which have  been the effects of these variations.  In this analysis and in this understanding we will pay very special attention to the different forms of governance, control and social resistance, and in the forms of "sociality", "individualization" and "subjectivity" that they entail.

It is not intended to address all the implications of this discipline, but to offer the bases of the sociological perspective in order to analyze the basic aspects of the social structure and inequalities. After a brief introduction to the sociological perspective, a mark of the discipline, the program focuses first on the process of socialization and the implications it has on the individual-society dialectic relationship. Secondly, the key aspects for understanding the social structure are addressed, linking the question of power and social control. Third, it explains how the processes linked to the social construction of identity are immersed in social structures, power and control. Finally, the great current questions about the structure of inequalities in the global world are explored: the change in the class structure and the creation of new forms of identity, considering gender as those most suggestive of being understood in the present.

Competences

  • Developing critical thinking and reasoning and communicating them effectively both in your own and other languages.
  • Respecting the diversity and plurality of ideas, people and situations.
  • Students must be capable of applying their knowledge to their work or vocation in a professional way and they should have building arguments and problem resolution skills within their area of study.
  • Students must be capable of collecting and interpreting relevant data (usually within their area of study) in order to make statements that reflect social, scientific or ethical relevant issues.
  • Students must be capable of communicating information, ideas, problems and solutions to both specialised and non-specialised audiences.
  • Students must develop the necessary learning skills to undertake further training with a high degree of autonomy.
  • Students must have and understand knowledge of an area of study built on the basis of general secondary education, and while it relies on some advanced textbooks it also includes some aspects coming from the forefront of its field of study.

Learning Outcomes

  1. Analysing a contemporary fact and relating it to its historical background.
  2. Carrying out an individual work that specifies the work plan and timing of activities.
  3. Describing social phenomena in a theoretically relevant way, bearing in mind the complexity of the involved factors, its causes and its effects.
  4. Describing the structural framework of life in society.
  5. Engaging in debates about historical and contemporary facts and respecting the other participants' opinions.
  6. Explaining the elements that affect an individual's inclusion in society: family, education, media, culture, religion and ideology.
  7. Identifying main and supporting ideas and expressing them with linguistic correctness.
  8. Identifying the main ideas of a subject-related text and making a diagram.
  9. Interpreting today's main events from physical, economic, social and cultural diversity.
  10. Searching for documentary sources starting from concepts.

Content

Topic 1: The sociological perspective

  • The sociological perspective
  • Sociology as a practice and how to know

Topic 2: How do we become social? Dialectic individual and society.

  • Primary socialization and secondary socialization
  • Significant others and generalized others
  • Identity and role
  • social institution
  • Freedom and routine
  • Interiorization and objectification
  • Normality, labeling and social control.

Topic 3: What place do we occupy on the world stage? Social structure, power and control.

  • Social class, status and stratification
  • Structure and social division through the classics of sociology (Marx, Durkheim and
  • Weber)
  • A contemporary look at social classes: Pierre Bourdieu

Topic 4: The social construction of identity: modernity and institutionalization.

  • Modernity and the institutionalization of national identity
  • The processes of individuation in modernity and collective social action
  • Power and legitimation

Topic 5: Processes of change in the contemporary world (postmodernity, globalization and diversity)

  • New and old inequalities: social classes in the 21st century
  • Identity and diversity in the framework of globalization

Methodology

The teaching is articulated from two types of sessions in the classroom: lectures by the teacher and seminars, where practical exercises and readings by students are carried out.

The lectures are oriented to the presentation by the teacher of the concepts and central arguments of the subject in the different contents of the program. all classes will promote the active participation of students based on questions for the debate.

The seminars are workspaces on the contents of the subject based on readings and practical exercises that the students have to do. Thus, the training activities will be of different types

  • Attendance to class and participation in debates
  • Compulsory readings
  • Individual and group work

Activities

Title Hours ECTS Learning Outcomes
Type: Directed      
Master Class 50 2 4, 3, 6, 9
Type: Supervised      
Group work 24 0.96 1, 10, 3, 6, 9, 5
Presentations at seminars 1 0.04 6, 5
Type: Autonomous      
Readings 75 3 1, 10, 2, 8, 7

Assessment

The evaluation consists of two parts:

  1. Continuous evaluation according to the rhythm of development of the program (60%):
  • An initial work, in pairs, based on a text provided by the teacher and using the concepts of the subject (20%).
  • A group work (3 people) applying the concepts of units 1, 2, 3 and 4. (20%).
  • Practical exercises and reading comments made in the classroom. (20%)

        2. A final homework with six short questions solve all the subject's syllabus (40%)

In order to be able to take the final exam, it is necessary to have followed the continuous evaluation (that is, to have participated in the classes, presented the two practical works and the exercise of reading commentary in the classroom). Otherwise, the student will be considered "not evaluable". Likewise, if having the conditions to do so, the student does not appear for the final exam, it will be automatically recorded as "not evaluable".

In case the average of the evaluation continues and the final exam does not reach the grade of 5, the student will be considered to have suspended the evaluation.

In order to participate in the student recovery exam, the weight of which must be at least 2/3 of the total grade must have been previously evaluated in a set of activities. The suspended student has the right to recovery if he/she has taken a grade higher than 3.5 in the whole of the evaluation. The recovery of any of the suspended parts will consist of an examination. The final maximum score that can be obtained, if the recovery exam is passed, will be a 5.

At the time of completion of each evaluation activity, the teacher will inform the students (Moodle) of the procedure and date of review of the grades.

IMPORTANT

In the event that the student performs any irregularity that could lead to a significant variation of the grade of an evaluation act (such as plagiarism or similar), this evaluation act will be scored with 0, regardless of the disciplinary process that can be instructed. In case there are several irregularities in the evaluation acts of the same subject (such as plagiarism or similar), the final grade of this subject will be 0.

EVALUATION IN CASE OF NON-ATTENDANCE:

In the event that tests or exams cannot be taken onsite, they will be adapted to an online format made available through the UAB’s virtual tools (original weighting will be maintained). Homework, activities and class participation will be carried out through forums, wikis and/or discussion on Teams, etc. Lecturers will ensure that students are able to access these virtual tools, or will offer them feasible alternatives.

 

Assessment Activities

Title Weighting Hours ECTS Learning Outcomes
A final Homework with six brief questions solve all the syllabus of the subject 40% 0 0 1, 4, 3, 2, 6, 8, 7, 9, 5
A group work (3 people) applying the concepts of units 1, 2, 3 and 4. 20% 0 0 10, 3, 2, 6, 8, 7, 9
An initial work, in pairs, based on a text provided by the teacher and using the concepts of the course. 20% 0 0 1, 4, 3, 6, 7, 9
Practical exercises and reading comments made in the classroom 20% 0 0 1, 10, 4, 3, 6, 5

Bibliography

Compuylsory bibliography

Compulsory Reading Dossier

 Reference bibliography

Bauman, Zygmunt (2000). Líquid modernity. Cambridge: Polity Press.

Becker, Howard. (2009) Outsiders. Buenos Aires: Siglo XXI.

Bourdieu, Pierre. i Wacquant, Loïd J.D. (1994) Per a una sociologia reflexiva. Barcelona: Herder.

Bourdieu, Pierre (1999). La miseria del mundo. Editorial Akal.

Cardús, S., & Estradé, A. (2005). La Mirada del sociòleg: què és, què fa, què diu la sociologia / Salvador Cardús i Ros (coordinador) ; Antoni Estradé i Saltó ... [et al.]. Barcelona : Proa,.

Castles, Stephen; de Haas, Hein; Miller, Mark J. (2009).The Age of Migration. Guilford Press

Claval, Paul (1991 [1980]). Els mites fundadors de les ciències socials. Barcelona: Herder.

Elías, Norbert (1982) Sociología fundamental. Barcelona: Gedisa.

Espinet, Francesc i Tresserras, Joan Manuel (1999). La genèsi de la societat de masses a Catalunya, 1888-1939. UAB.

Fernández, Miquel (2014) Matar al Chino. Entre la revolución urbanística y el asedio urbano en el Barrio del Raval de Barcelona. Barcelona: Virus Editorial

Fernández, Miquel (2018) Revelar la violència, denunciar el mal. Crítica als fonaments morals de les intervencions urbanístiques al Raval de Barcelona, Arxiu d’Etnografía de Catalunya, n.o 18, 2018, 243-266 | DOI: 10.17345/aec18.243-266ISSN: 0212-0372 – EISSN: 2014-3885 – http://antropologia.urv.cat/revistarxiu

Freud, Sigmund. (1930/2008) El malestar de la civilització. Girona: Accent Editorial. Traducció i pròleg de Josep Maria Terricabras.

Fausto-Sterling, Anne. (2000). Cuerpos sexuados. Barcelona: Melusina.

Giddens, A. (1985 [1971]) “Diferenciación socialy división del trebajo”, a El capitalismo y la moderna teoría social, Barcelona: Labor: pp. 361-86.

Heller, Agnes. Què és la «postmodernitat» un quart de segle més tard. Conferència celebrada el 15 de març de 2006, en el marc de les jornades «Visions creuades, visions de canvi. Ciutats i regions d'Europa», que van tenir lloc al CCCB el 15 i el 16 de març de 2006.

Martínez, Xavier i Marín, Antonio. (2016). Educació i mobilitat social a Catalunya. Basat en el Panel de Desigualtats de la Fundació Bofill.

Mauss, Marcel. (1936). “Concepto de la técnica corporal”, Journal de Psychologie, 32, 3-4.

Marquès, Josep Vicent (1980). No és natural. València: Tres i Quatre. Morin, Edgar (1995) Sociología. Madrid: Tecnos.

Muniesa, Bernat (1997). Orígens i formació de les ciències socials, Editorial UOC.

Sassen, Saskia (2007). Una sociología de la globalización. Buenos Aires: Katz.

Sennet, Richard (2006). La corrosión del carácter. Barcelona: Anagrama.

Sennet, Richard (2014) Juntos (Together). Barcelona: Alianza.

Simmel, Georg. (1908/2001) El Individuo y la libertad : ensayos de crítica de la cultura.Barcelona : Península.

Touraine, Alain (2008). Penser autrement. Paris: Fayard.

Wilson, Edward O. (2012). La conquista social de la tierra. Editorial Debate.

Wittgenstein, Ludwig (1983). De la certesa. Barcelona: Edicions 62.

Williams, Ray. (1958/2008) Historia y cultura común. Antología. Madrid: Los libros de la Catarata.

Wright, Erik O. (1994), Clases. Madrid: Siglo XXI.