SOCIOLOGY

The class have the explicit goal of providing students with the main foundations of sociology as science studying society in a theoretical and empirical way. It will be provided a brief introduction to the different elements and fields of application of the sociological knowledge: the dialectic between society and culture, the sociological concept of individual and collective social actor, the notion of social structure both as institution and organization. Also, it will be introduced the notions of social change and social process from the of the classics' point of view as well as providing the necessary knowledge for learning the sociological thought history. Moreover, the class aim at traning students to the methods and techniques of sociological research, making use of the research approach of who continually throwing doubt on the validity and reliability of the object to explain social phenomena; a good knowledge of methods and tools for social research will therefore be essential to learn the construction of the research design, in both standard and non-standard approach. Two monographic topics will be studied. The first focus on theoretical and empirical approaches on social movements: starting from the conceptualization of the object up exemplifying the various possible research routes. The second focuses, instead, on the issue of second generation immigrants; the aim is to analyze the present-day position of young second generation immigrants in Italy and Sicily, specifying and discussing the main issues arising from the emergence of this important social category, both from an institutional and cultural point of view, with particular regard to the Italian citizenship law issue.

INSTITUTIONAL TOPICS: 1) What is society?; Individual and collective social actors, and identity; Social structures: institution and organization. 2) The relationship between theory and research; Emile Durkheim; Georg Simmel; Karl Marx; Max Weber; The symbolic interactionism; The theories of social action. 3) Methodological aspects and functions of sociological research; Developing research questions; Comparing quantitative and qualitative methods; The sampling; The interview; Questionnaire and survey. MONOGRAPHIC TOPICS: 4) Defining social movements; Conceptualization dilemmas; The Italian empirical research. 5) Introduction to the Second generation migrants' issues: an introduction; the issue of citizenship; Life paths, identities at the borde and forms of belongings; Cases and contexts: family, school, religion and sport.

Titles translated from the Italian editions, not edited in English language.

1) Crespi F., Introduction to sociology, il Mulino, 2002, Bologna, pp. 37-129.

2) Crespi F., The sociological thought, il Mulino, 2002, Bologna, pp. 9-76; 89-110; 159-167; 195-229; 265-277.

3) Daher L.M., Notes on sociological research methods (pamphlet on line).

4) Daher L.M., Doing research on social movements in Italy. Past, present and future, FrancoAngeli, 2012, Milano.

5) Daher L.M., (a cura di), Second generation “migrants”: new citizens in search of identity, Aracne, 2012, Roma.