Contemporary Sociology in Global Age 2

Bachelor 2024/2025

Type: Elective course (International Programme in Economics and Finance)

Area of studies: Economics

Delivered by: International College of Economics and Finance

Where: International College of Economics and Finance

When: 2 year, 3, 4 module

Mode of studies: offline

Open to: students of one campus

Instructors: Elena Danilova

Language: English

ECTS credits: 3

Full Syllabus

Abstract

Students are supposed to be familiar with World Intellectual History or History of Western Philosophy, and English for Academic Writing. Contemporary Sociology in a Global Age 1 is also a pre-requisite for this course. This is a course that will introduce you to sociological ways of analysing the rapidly changing social world of the 21st century. It covers different areas that today's sociologists focus their research on. Sociology is the study of society. But what is sociology? In which way sociological thinking is different from economic explanations? Whereas economists focus on costs and benefits, sociologists are interested in the impact of informal social norms, networks, culture, ideology, power and the like on human behaviour. For example, traditional economic analysis takes the atomistic individual as its starting point, sociology generally begins with groups, or whole societies, which it views as existing independently of and partially constituting the individual. When economic sociologists do focus on individuals, it is generally to examine the ways in which their interests, beliefs, and motivations to act are mutually shaped through the interactions between them. This focus on economic action as social—that is, as oriented toward other people—allows economic sociologists to consider power, culture, organizations, and institutions as being important factors which shapes economic behaviour. During the course students are introduced to sociological explanations of human behaviour as an alternative way of explanation.

Learning Objectives

offer an overview of key issues in contemporary sociology
apply core substantive and theoretical debates in sociology to a diverse range of empirical societies, including your own

Expected Learning Outcomes

Able to define and apply the concepts of civil inattention, extension, netiquette, compulsion to proximity, virtual communities, virtual reality , new media imperialism, ‘internet galaxy’.
Able to define and apply the concepts of deviance, (juvenile) delinquency, crime, equilibrium of deviance, sanctions, positive (incentives) or negative (penalties), criminology, nonconformity, anomie, deviant subcultures, labelling theory, criminal careers, ‘paradox of social control’, deviancy amplification, organised crime, piracy, restorative justice, role of prisons.
Able to define and apply the concepts of health and illness, biomedical model of health, the sick role (Parsons), ‘badness’ versus ‘sickness’, total institutions, 'clinical gaze', 'biomedical discourse', public health policy, medicalisation, bioengineering, ‘biological underclass’, iatrogenesis, impairment and disability, individual model of disability, stigma.
Able to define and apply the concepts of media, digital revolution, ‘medium is the message’, new media, digital inequality, big data analytics, cybercrime, sociological approaches to mass media – Functionalism, Critical theory, Interactionism, Post Modernism.
Able to define and apply the concepts of nation, nationalism, nation-state, Westphalian sovereignty, ‘ethnies’, nations without states, imagined communities, civil society, arguments for and against weakening the role of the state in the process of globalization.
Able to define and apply the concepts of race and ethnicity, racial discrimination, old (biological) racism and new (cultural) racism, multiple racisms and institutional racism, ‘critical race theory’.
Able to define and apply the concepts of religion, profane and sacred, secularisation thesis, measurements of secularization, religious forms and religious movements, fundamentalism, ‘clash of civilisations’, jihadism.
Able to define and apply the concepts of social and biological aspects of the life course, life cycle versus life course, birth cohorts versus generations, generational identity, stages of the life course, social age, ageism, Demographic Transition Model (DTM).
Able to define and apply the concepts of war, ‘rules of war’, old and new wars, peace processes, ‘positive peace’ versus ‘negative peace’, post-violence societies, genocide, Holocaust, terrorism.
Able to define and apply the concepts of ‘new ethnicities’ and situational identity, ethnic inequality, globalisation of ethnicity, push factors’ and ‘pull factors’ models, ethnic conflict, assimilation and integration, ethnicity and health, global differences in health, ‘mobilities research’.

Course Contents

Race
Ethnicity
Nations and nationalism
Conflict and warfare
Crime in a global context
Global health and medicine
Religion
Family
The life course
Digital media
New forms of sociation

Assessment Elements

Home assignments (HA)
Seminars’ participation (SP)
March assessment
Assessment (March) – 80 min (1 question 12 marks and 1 question 32 marks = 44 marks) 
Exam
In order to get a passing grade for the course, the student must sit (all parts) of the examination.

Interim Assessment

2024/2025 4th module
0.5 * Exam + 0.1 * Home assignments (HA) + 0.3 * March assessment + 0.1 * Seminars’ participation (SP)

Bibliography

Recommended Core Bibliography

Dillon, M. Introduction to Sociological Theory: Theorists, Concepts, and Their Applicability to the Twenty-First Century. (Wiley-Blackwell, 2009) first edition. http://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/hselibrary-ebooks/detail.action?docID=1566387

Recommended Additional Bibliography

Beenstock, Michael. Heredity, Family, and Inequality : A Critique of Social Sciences, MIT Press, 2012. ProQuest Ebook Central, https://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/hselibrary-ebooks/detail.action?docID=3339353.
Constructions of deviance : social power, context, and interaction, Adler, P. A., 2006
Critical race theory : an introduction, Delgado, R., 2012
Digital media and society, Lindgren, S., 2017
Encyclopedia of Violence, Peace, & Conflict (2-nd Edition) /Lester Kurtz, editor. -- 2008
Genocide : a reader, , 2014
Global Media Ethics: Problems and Perspectives, edited by Stephen J. A. Ward, John Wiley & Sons, Incorporated, 2013. ProQuest Ebook Central, https://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/hselibrary-ebooks/detail.action?docID=1120866 - ЭБС ProQuest Ebook Central - Academic Complete.
Handbook of medical sociology, , 2000
Juergensmeyer M. (ed.). The Oxford handbook of global religions. – Oxford. - 2011. – 688 p. – URL: https://www.oxfordhandbooks.com/view/10.1093/oxfordhb/9780195137989.001.0001/oxfordhb-9780195137989
Key concepts in medical sociology, , 2013

Authors

KUZINA OLGA EVGENEVNA

Course Syllabus