This version of the course guide is provisional until the period for editing the new course guides ends.

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Social Structure

Code: 100475 ECTS Credits: 6
2024/2025
Degree Type Year
2500257 Criminology FB 1

Contact

Name:
Jose Oscar Rebollo Izquierdo
Email:
oscar.rebollo@uab.cat

Teaching groups languages

You can view this information at the end of this document.


Prerequisites

The course will be held according to the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) perspective.

The theoretical lessons will be taught in Catalan and the seminars in Spanish


Objectives and Contextualisation

The aim of the course is to introduce students to the analysis and understanding of the processes of structuring and social stratification: how the map of social inequality is constructed and reproduced and which social groups are generated from the different axes of social structuring: class, age, gender and ethnicity.


Competences

  • Ability to analyse and summarise.
  • Analysing the conflict and criminology by using the criminological theories and their psychological and sociological foundations.
  • Drawing up an academic text.
  • Students must demonstrate they know the psychological and sociological concepts and foundations of criminology.
  • Verbally transmitting ideas to an audience.
  • Working autonomously.
  • Working in teams and networking.

Learning Outcomes

  1. Ability to analyse and summarise.
  2. Drawing up an academic text.
  3. Explaining the applied sociological bases of criminology.
  4. Using the sociological bases to analyse crime situations.
  5. Verbally transmitting ideas to an audience.
  6. Working autonomously.
  7. Working in teams and networking.

Content

1. Social structure and inequality: origin and type of inequality. Because inequality is social. Social structure and groups.

2. What to understand by social structure. Structure and stratification.

3. State, market and civil society in the configuration of the map of social inequalities. The reproduction and legitimation of inequality.

4. Axes of social structuring in modern society: social classes.

5. Axes of social structuring in modern society: age.

6. Axes of social structuring in modern society: gender.

7. Axes of social structuring in modern society: ethnicity.

8. Social change and individual mobility.

9. Processes of social exclusion and inclusion.

10. Inequality and the environment.

11. The agents of social change. Old and new social movements.


Activities and Methodology

Title Hours ECTS Learning Outcomes
Type: Directed      
Lectures. 19.5 0.78 3, 2, 1, 7, 4
Seminars. Cooperative learning process (working in small groups) and mixed methodology (bi-directional). 19.5 0.78 3, 2, 1, 5, 7, 4
Type: Autonomous      
Evaluation. 5 0.2 3, 1, 6, 4
Student external work 106 4.24 3, 2, 1, 5, 6, 7, 4

The teaching methodology combines, on the one hand, the lectures given by the teacher in the lectures, where students are expected to participate in the debates that will take place in the classroom; and on the other, workshops that will require a more active and protagonist participation from the students, since they will consist of the realization of presentations of readings, debates around the same and the realization of practical exercises related to the development of the group work.

Annotation: Within the schedule set by the centre or degree programme, 15 minutes of one class will be reserved for students to evaluate their lecturers and their courses or modules through questionnaires.


Assessment

Continous Assessment Activities

Title Weighting Hours ECTS Learning Outcomes
Collective working paper on one of the several subjects proposed to the students 30% 0 0 3, 2, 1, 7, 4
Final exam on the contents of the course (compulsory readings and theoretical lectures) 50% 0 0 3, 1, 5, 6, 4
Participation in the seminars and group presentation based on one of the compulsory readings 20% 0 0 3, 1, 5, 7, 4

The final mark of the subject will be the result of combining different types of exercises

- A final exam (50% of the final grade)

- A group work (30% of the final grade)

- Attendance and participation in the seminars (20% of the final grade)

In the seminars students will receive orientations for the realization of the group work

To pass the subject, between all three qualifications, students need to obtain a minimum of 5 in the final exam.

The subject requires regular attendance to lectures and seminars, as well as continuous work by the student.

Students must attend at least 80% of classes (not counting excused absences) to pass the subject. Absences can only be justified for reasons of illness, force majeure and other academic reasons previously authorized by the teaching team.

Resit: both the exam and the group work may be object of resit, through individual exercises, on the dates established in the academic calendar

Cheating or attempting to cheat on the exam will result in failing with a zero, as well as the loss of the right to resit. Plagiarism in essays will imply also a zero grade, without possibility of resit.

Classes start on time. Students must be punctual.

The student will be only assessed when having carried out activities whose weight is equivalent to at least 2/3 of the total qualification of the subject. If the qualification of the activities previously mentioned does not reach this threshold, the student might be considered as not evaluable.

Single Assessment

It will consist of the following three evaluable activities:

- Text type exam on the contents of the book Requena and others (2013) (60%)

- Realization of an oral presentation of 10' duration where the student will have to explain what social classes are and their validity for the analysis of contemporary social structures (20%)

- Practical individual work: make a press dossier, with a minimum of 5 articles or journalistic references, commented, that deal with conflicts typical of the processes of the social structure in Catalonia during the period 2020-2023 (20%), with oral presentation, 10' long.

Bibliography single evaluation:

- Requena, M.; Salazar, L.; Rald, J. (2013). Estratificación Social. UNED-McGraw-Hill


Bibliography

The mandatory reading bibliography, and therefore evaluable content, is compiled in a dossier of readings accessible through the virtual campus

For a better understanding of the concepts presented in class, you can refer to the following bibliography:

2. REFERENCE MANUALS

Kerbo, H. (2004). Estratificación Social y Desigualdad. McGRAW-HILL

Macgarvey, D. (2018). Safari en la Pobreza. Capitán Swing

Miguelez, F., Garcia, T., Rebollo, O., Sanchez, C., Romero, A. (1997). Desigualtat i canvi. Proa/UAB

Piketty, T. (2021). Breve historia de la Igualdad. Deusto

Rendueles, C. (2020). Contra la Igualdad de Pportunidades. Seix Barral

Requena, M., Salazar, L., Radl, J.(2013). Estratificación Social. UNED. MacGraw-Hill

Servigne, P.,  Stevens, R. (2020). Colapsología. Arpa

Wilkinson, R.G y K. Pickett (2009). Desigualdad: Un anàlisis de la (In)felicidad colectiva. Turner

Wilkinson, R.G y K. Pickett (2009). Igualdad. Capitan Swing


Software

No software will be used in the course. 


Language list

Name Group Language Semester Turn
(TE) Theory 1 Catalan second semester morning-mixed