Syllabus Information

5.1. Methodological overview

The main methodological tools that will be required from students for  this class are reading and analysis of charts and graphs. With respect to reading, the student is expected to read about 10-20 pages per week. Many of these readings will be worked thoroughly in Type 2 sessions 

The teacher will provide additional contents to facilitate learning, most of them directly available through the ADD. These contents will include illustrative charts and graphs highlighting social processes and trends discussed in the various blocks of the course. It is expected that the couuse advances, students learn how to read and interpret the information contained in different types of graphs and tables, and end up being able to build their own research proposals using this kind of quantitative information

5.2. Learning tasks

Type 1 activities consist basically of lectures, whereby the teacher will present the theoretical foundations and discuss core issues included in the program. Some of these sessions will be organized in the form of seminars, where active student participation is expected.

In learning activities Type 2, students will work on assignements that address practical puzzles related to the topics addressed in Type 1 lectures through text analysis, debates and class discussions,  the viewing and critical analysis of sequences of documentaries / films, quantitative data analysis, etc.

 
Finally, in the Type 6 block students are requested to come up with a small research proposal and work on it through the course under the guidance of the teacher. Students will have the opportunity to discuss the details of their research work with the teacher sevral times over the semester.

5.3. Syllabus

The contents of this course are structured around the following thematic blocks. Each block will cover classes over a 2-3 weeks period. 
 
Block 1. Analysis of inequality and social stratification
- What is inequality?
- How is it measured?
- Social stratification. Historical and contemporary models
 
Block 2. From the Industrial Society to the present days
- From Fordism to post-Fordism.
- Globalization and the development of new information technologies
- Class structure and social mobility in the Postindustrial Society
 
Block 3. The transformation of the labor market and the impact on inequality. Labor market and social dualization
- The segmentation of the labor market
- The expansion of atypical employment
- Employment relations and social rights
 
Block 4. Age as a factor of inequality 
- Young people in the labor market
- Older workers
- Intergenerational conflicts in the labor market and in the distribution of social protection
 
Block 5. Gender as a factor of inequality in the domestic sphere and the public sphere
- The social construction of gender and its relationship to the structure of inequality
- The domestic sphere and the public sphere
- Women and social classes
 
Block 6. International migration and labor inequality
- Prejudice and discrimination
- Immigrants in the labor market
- The access of migrants to social benefits
 
Block 7. Social Exclusion
- Social exclusion as a multidimensional phenomenon
- Labor exclusion and poverty
- The consequences of poverty and inequality