Society and Social Change

The general objectives of the course consist of learning the main theoretical and interpretative concepts and paradigms of sociology applied to its most relevant fields of investigation. The specificity of the sociological perspective as scientific knowledge (in terms of theoretical perspectives, methods and techniques of social research) will be clarified. Students will be familiar with the different fields of investigation of the discipline (the economic sphere and the labour market, politics, the territorial dimension of social phenomena, the family, school and religion, the media, and deviance), with its concepts and its main perspectives. The subject of specific change will be the theme of social change, which will be discussed in the light of sociological theories on social systems (bio-psychic, economic and cultural), deepening, in particular, the evolutionary theory of change. The course ends with the illustration of the data that emerged from a research that identifies the main factors that have contributed to modelling the trend of economic inequalities in human societies over a broad historical period of time.

At the end of the course the students will have understood and acquired the basic vocabulary, the knowledge of the main authors and the prevailing theoretical perspectives of sociology; they should have become capable of distinguishing common sense assumptions from scientific knowledge, and they should have developed autonomous critical and judgment skills with reference to the main dynamics and processes characterizing contemporary societies.
They should be capable to apply independently and creatively the knowledge learned to contemporary social processes as well as to social phenomena of the past. Finally, they will have become familiar with the most relevant datasets produced by the main national and international institutions (Istat, Eurostat, OECD ...) to develop, in the future, autonomous research and study paths in this field.