Lab: the Italian Welfare System After the Pandemic

The course aims at providing students with the theoretical and methodological knowledge, which is necessary to analyse - in a sociological perspective - the the current evolution of the Italian welfare system, of its programmes, institutions and regulatory principles. The analysis of the current trajectory of change in the Italian case will be framed within the context of transfomation of the European welfare systems.
Main current welfare systems reforms in Italy will be analysed and discussed, focusing on some policies and sectors such as healthcare, childcare, long term care and social inclusion. Students will have the opportunity to make use of the main conceptual and methodological tools learned in the course, in order not only to analyse the programmes started during and after the pandemic Covid-19 emergency, but also to assess their opportunities and critical issues, with particular attention to the multilevel governance of the welfare state in Italy.

At the end of the course, students will have developed the skills that allow them both to analyse the current transformations of the Italian welfare system, identifying their causes and purposes, and to independently elaborate his/her own interpretation of the observed phenomena. Students will be able to identify main critical issues in the Italian welfare system and in its most recent reforms. Students will also develop adequate communication skills, with particular regard to the specific language relating to the theoretical and methodological aspects of the sociology of welfare systems. He/she will be able to properly discuss and argue his/her personal opinion and theses on situations connected to these studies, as well as on topics that are proposed by the literature or that are empirically observable. Finally, students will know how to analyse, interpret and autonomously deepen - with the approach of the economic sociology and of the sociology of welfare systems - current social, economic and political phenomena concerning welfare institutions in Italy. Particular attention will be paid to the challenges and critical issues raised by the multivel governance of the Italian welfare state.