Bachelor
2024/2025
Sociology
Type:
Compulsory course (International Program 'International Relations and Global Studies')
Area of studies:
International Relations
Delivered by:
Faculty of World Economy and International Affairs
When:
2 year, 1, 2 module
Mode of studies:
offline
Open to:
students of one campus
Language:
English
ECTS credits:
4
Contact hours:
48
Course Syllabus
Abstract
The course is aimed at giving theoretical and methodological resources to reflect on various social and economic phenomena which bind traditional, modern and (post)modern society. The emergence of the ‘sociology of modern society’ was recognized as a break with tradition. At the same time, there is a strong debate on whether this break was intellectually fruitful especially after the turn to a (post)modern state. For example, the growing interest in the artifacts of traditional society, such as gift giving, bazaars, and communities, realizes the need towards the resocialization of economy and society based on new technologies. Social sciences have accumulated rich theoretical and empirical resources which could be applied to conceptualize and objectify present-day challenges of human coexistence. During the course, we will rely on these resources to discuss the agenda of contemporary society. This introductory course exposes the structure of social sciences and the relationships between subfields to provide the polemics between several disciplines – sociology, demography, anthropology, and economic science. It is divided into several sessions which represent main spheres of sociological investigation: social solidarity, gift exchange, money & market exchange, origins of capitalism, stratification & social inequality, family & childbirth, religion, social groups & social networks, trust & social capital, modern organizations & platforms. Lectures in each session rely on the theoretical debates, local cases, and comparative data which represent various countries.
Learning Objectives
- Familiarity with the main concepts and schools in social theory, with context of development of modern social thought
- Ability to apply basic conceptual tools of sociology for studying basic problems of contemporary social life
- Skills of discussion, critical analysis and evaluation of texts in social sciences
Expected Learning Outcomes
- ability to differentiate the types of social stratification systems and analyze the social inequality on varoius dimentions
- Knows the principles of the Soviet and post-Soviet family policy.
- Having mastered the course, the students are expected to be in the position to identify the main sociological and theoretical debate of secularization and de-secularization (the historical processes and their underlying causes).
- Able to define and apply sociological concepts and theories to analyse social phenomena of contemporary society
- Able to define and apply the concepts of economic sociology, homo economicus, homo sociologicus, embededdness, trust, the substantive and the formal meaning of ‘economic’, new economic sociology, markets as mechanism versus markets as institution, money, social meaning of money, earmarking.
- 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 analyze key anthropological concepts (gift and commodity)
- Familiarity with the grand distinction between public and private religion, measures of religiosity.
- Familiarity with the main concepts and schools in social theory, with the context of the development of modern social thought.
- Familiarity with the main concepts of gift and sharing economy.
- Familiarity with the main issues of modern social thought.
- Familiarity with the main sociological theories of marriage and family formation.
- Familiarity with the origins of modern capitalism and Weber's argument in "The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism".
- to know main models of social stratification used in empirical researches of social inequality
- Student to know about the mopral and legal implications of the embeddedness of informality in the contemporary Russian society
- analysing basic approaches in gift theory
- - ables to use sociological theories for the analysis of social phenomena and processes
- - knows of basic classical theories and paradigms of sociological thinking
- The student applies basic facts from graph theory in simple social networks
- to describe the presence and intricacies of religions and religiosity in Modern Russia
- learn meanings of 'bureaucracy', its features (advantages and disadvantages these features provide), its functions, its limitations, its types
- Identify the main concepts and schools in contemporary social theory, with context of development of modern social thought
- Apply basic conceptual tools of contemporary sociology for studying basic problems of contemporary social life
- Train skills of discussion, critical analysis and evaluation of texts in social sciences
- know basic approaches to the sociological studies of organisations
- explain the role of social capital and weak ties on the job market
- Able to define and apply the concepts of socialisation, habitus, family relations and reflexivity, marriage as nomos building instrumentality, family versus household, values shift, relational competences.
- apply the concepts of social network theory to international relations
Course Contents
- Introduction. Sociology as a science and way of thinking
- Transition to Modern society. Durkheim's theory of solidarity
- In search of the “pure sociality”. The Gift.
- From Dyad to Triad and Social group. Formal Sociology of George Simmel
- On the Origins of Modern Capitalism. Weber's sociology of social action.
- Expansion of Capitalism and the rise of Social Inequality
- Social networks. Strong and Weak ties.
- Religion and (de) Secularization of Society
- Family and Social Relations
- Organizations and Institutions.
- Sociology of Markets and Money
- Sociology and International Relations
Interim Assessment
- 2024/2025 2nd module0.3 * Final Essay + 0.25 * Final Exam + 0.15 * Midterm assessment + 0.15 * Reading Seminars + 0.15 * Reading Seminars
Bibliography
Recommended Core Bibliography
- A theory of fields, Fligstein, N., 2012
- American religion : contemporary trends, Chaves, M., 2013
- Analyzing social networks, Borgatti, S. P., 2018
- Bureaucracy, Beetham, D., 1996
- Centuries of childhood : a social history of family life, Aries, P., 1962
- Culture, class, and critical theory : bettween Bourdieu and the Frankfurt school, Gartman, D., 2014
- Distinction : a social critique of the judgement of taste, Bourdieu, P., 2000
- Durkheim, Giddens, A., 1986
- Economy and society. Vol.1: ., Weber, M., 2013
- Economy and society. Vol.2: ., Weber, M., 2013
- From Max Weber : essays in sociology, , 1997
- Georg Simmel, Frisby, D., 2002
- Getting a job : a study of contacts and careers, Granovetter, M., 1995
- Handbook of marriage and the family, , 1964
- Markets, Aspers, P., 2011
- Networks of nations : the evolution, structure, and impact of international networks, 1816-2001, Maoz, Z., 2011
- Organizations : rational, natural, and open systems, Scott, W. R., 1998
- Personal networks : classic readings and new directions in egocentric analysis, , 2021
- Pricing the priceless child : the changing social value of children, Zelizer, V. A., 1994
- Readings in the economics of the division of labor : the classical tradition, , 2005
- Religion, culture and society : a global approach, Singleton, A., 2014
- Reproduction in education, society and culture, Bourdieu, P., 2000
- Suicide : a study in sociology, Durkheim, E., 2010
- The architecture of markets : an economic sociology of twenty-first-century capitalist societies, Fligstein, N., 2001
- The Communist manifesto, Marx, K., 2012
- The division of labor in society, Durkheim, E., 1997
- The elementary forms of religious life, Durkheim, E., 2008
- The gift relationship. From human blood to social policy, Titmus, R.M., 1973
- The great transformation : the political and economic origins of our time, Polanyi, K., 1971
- The New institutionalism in organizational analysis, , 1991
- The Protestant ethic and the spirit of capitalism, Weber, M., 1992
- The purchase of intimacy, Zelizer, V. A., 2005
- The relational subject, Donati, P., 2015
- The rules of sociological method, Durkheim, E., 1982
- The sociology of religion, Weber, M., 1993
- The transformation of corporate control, Fligstein, N., 1993
Recommended Additional Bibliography
- An Inquiey into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations, Smith, A., 1998
- Bourdieu : a critical reader, , 1999
- Capital : an abridged edition, Marx, K., 2008
- Conflict and The Web of Group-Affiliations : [two major essays on the dynamics of social organization by the great German philosopher and social theorist], Simmel, G., 1964
- Four sociological traditions, Collins, R., 1994
- Institutions and organizations, Scott, W. R., 2001
- Society and economy : framework and principles, Granovetter, M., 2017
- The reason of the gift, Marion, J.- L., 2011