Social Stratification and Mobility
Code
711081009
Academic unit
Faculdade de Ciências Sociais e Humanas
Department
Sociologia
Credits
6
Teacher in charge
João Pedro Nunes
Weekly hours
4
Teaching language
Portuguese
Objectives
1. Knowledge and understanding of the main conceptual perpectives on the structure of social inequality;
2. Ability to translate conceptual perspectives into empirical tools for the analysis of social structure;
3. Knowldege and understanding of the trends of social structural change in contemporary societies;
4. Knowledge and ability to use analytical methods to study social mobility and its change;
5. Skills to design empirical work on social stratification and mobility, in the context of either basic research or of support to policy design and implementation;
6. Ability to present and communicate sociological knowledge, analytical results and problems in a meaningful and accurate way.
Prerequisites
Subject matter
1. The first theoretical approaches to social structure: K. Marx and M. Weber; J. Schumpeter
2. Functionalist perspectives: T. Parsons, K. Davies and W. Moore
3. Operationalising to graspthe social structure empirically: E. O. Wright, P. Bourdieu, J. Goldthorpe, J. Ferreira de Almeida
4. Trendlines in the evolution of social structure
5. Class clsassification grids and how they are applied
6. Social mobility: a primer
7. The empirical analysis of mobility: by using intergenerational mobility tables or according to the factors of individual pathways
8. The evolution of change in our societies and its structural factors
9. Structural and net mobility
Bibliography
Costa, A.F. (2012). \"Desigualdades globais\". Sociologia, Problemas e Práticas (68), pp. 9-32.
Costa, A.F. et al. (2000). \"Classes sociais na Europa\". Sociologia, Problemas e Práticas (34), pp. 9-43.
Estanque, E., & Mendes, J.M (1998). Classes e desigualdades sociais em Portugal- Porto: Afrontamento.
Goldthorpe, J.H. (1987). Social struture and social mobility in modern Britain. Oxford: Clarendon.
Hammett, C. (1989). Restructuring Britain: The changing social structure. London: Sage.
Ishida, I. (1995). Social mobility in contemporary Japan. Stanford: Stanford University Press.
Teaching method
Theoretical lectures (50 %). Practical classwork (50%): presentation by the students and classroom debates of texts with examples of empirical analysis of social stratification and mobility, as well as exercises applying classification grids to sets of data to analyse social stratification and mobility.
Evaluation method
Evaluation methods:
Continuous assessment of participation in classwork (10%). Oral presentation of one text in class (15%). One written term paper (25%). One individual test written in class (50%).