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SOC 314 SOCIOLOGY OF EVERYDAY LIFE
Full Course Title:
Sociology of Everyday Life
Sociologija svakodnevnog života
Course Code:
Course Level/BiH cycle:
SOC 314
1st Cycle (Bachelor of Arts)
ECTS credit value:
6
Student work-load:
(Table with hours for: Lectures; Exercise; Other; Individual learning)
For the whole semester:
Length:
Faculty/School/Department:
Lectures
Tutorial /
Practical training
e.g.
Project
Individual
learning
TOTAL
45
15
30
60
150
One semester
FASS; Social and Political Sciences (SPS)
Course leader:
Assist. Prof. Dr Tuba Boz
Contact details:
Office:
e-mail:
Office hours:
Phone:
tboz@ius.edu.ba
Site:
IUS main campus building
Host Study Program:
Social and Political Sciences (SPS)
Course status:
Area Elective Course
Pre-requisites:
None
Access restrictions:
None
Assessment:
Presentations, group activities, consultations, quizzes, exams and take-home exams.
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Date validated:
Course aims:
Learning outcomes:
Indicative syllabus content:
June 2012
The aims of this course are to:
1. To develop students understanding of micro and macro level sociological theories;
2. To enrich students observation skills and their sociological imagination;
3. To enhance students knowledge of concepts concerning the mundane, social roles and
social interactions
4. To introduce students to the significance and techniques of interdisciplinary research
and cultural relativism;
5. To enrich student critical and analytical thinking
On successful completion of this course IUS student will be able to:
1. To explain the various micro and macro level sociological theories;
2. To observe and analyze societal patterns and social behaviour;
3. To think about the mundane and routine aspects of everyday life and social interactions
analytically and critically;
4. To employ interdisciplinary approaches when conducting research;
5. To think independently and formulate critical opinions.
This course is designed to introduce and equip SPS students with the fundamentals of the
sociology of everyday life. The main themes to be dealt with may include: Globalization; Social
Interaction; Social Media, Popular Culture; Fashion and Fads; New Technologies; Institutional
Symbolic Interaction, Dramaturgy, Ethnomethodology; Identity Construction; Symbols; Status;
Ethnography; Moral Consensus; Collective Behaviour; Public Sphere; Religion and Spirituality;
Tradition and Cultures; Social Roles and Impression Management.
Teaching occurs via lectures, seminars and tutorials, individual and team- work in-class activities.
Learning delivery:
Assessment Rationale:
Assessment Weighting:
Essential Reading:
Recommended readings:
In order to provide solid undergraduate foundation in the SPS program and to enable students to
develop a critical and evaluative understanding of culture with the socio-political environment,
and to demonstrate commitment and diligence at any time, different assessment methods are
proposed for this module. Therefore, appropriate and diverse assessment methods include fieldwork project, presentations, group activities, consultations, exams and take-home exams with
the aim to help students to stay focused and active, and fully benefit from the module.
Attendance and participation 5%
Research paper 20%
Midterm exam 25%
Presentation 10%
Final exam 40%
1. Christian Karner. Ethnicity and Everyday Life. Oxon: Routledge, 2007.
2. Tony Bennett and Diane Watson. Understanding Everyday Life. U.K.: Blackwell, 2002.
3. Erving Goffman. The Presentation of Self in Everyday Life. London: Penguin Books, 1990
4. Erving Goffman. Frame Analysis. U.S. Harper & Row. 1974.
5. Erving Goffman. Stigma. London: Penguin Books, 1962.
6. David Allen Karp, William C. Yoels and Barbara Holcombe Vann. Sociology in Everyday
Life. Long Grove: Waveland Press, 2004.
7. Harold Garfinkle. Studies in Ethnomethodology. Polity press, 1984.
8. George Herbert Mead. Mind, Self and Society. New York: Ardent Media Inc., 1993.
9. Herbert Blumer. Symbolic Interactionism: Perspective and Method. Berkley: University
of California Press, 1969
Additional/recommended reading:
Intranet web reference:
Important notes:
Students have to make sure to avoid plagiarism or even the vague possibility of plagiarism. Note
that copying from the internet or even taking ideas from internet sources without proper citation
is also a form of plagiarism, not only copying from paper based texts. Students are expected to
paraphrase the arguments whenever possible and add proper citations from the original text.
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Each final essay will be checked against anti-plagiarism software.
Failing to gain at least 30% from each assignment results in failing the course (that is students are
expected to undergo each of the four assignment forms (class participation, position paper, oral
presentation, final essay). Absence from class is allowed only with strong reason. Students are
allowed one “free miss” but more than one absence without documentation will negatively affect
the grade.
Quality Assurance:
At the study program Cultural Studies and the Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences special attention
is paid to quality assurance. A prerequisite for the application of quality assurance policy is to
develop awareness among academic staff, but also among students about the importance of
monitoring and improving the quality of teaching. It also implies an understanding that quality
monitoring is an evaluation of work, but the establishment of an institutional system with its full
implementation at all levels. Since the internal quality monitoring mission of the University or
Faculty within the University, this track will be given special attention, as follows:

Continuous improvement of policies and procedures for quality assurance due to the
specificity of the program,

Clearly established procedures and application of procedures in adoption of study
program in accordance with the guidelines. These procedures are established and there
is a need for further work on them,

Establishment of procedures for student evaluation and there is a need for its verbatim
and transparent application,

Selection of qualified and competent teaching staff,

Evaluation of efficiency of use of premises and equipment,

Regular information about the programs is done through the written and printed
materials,

Openness to external quality monitoring procedures established by the relevant
domestic and foreign institutions.
In addition to the above areas of quality assurance, students of IUS or a study program Cultural
Studies internally evaluate the quality of teaching and teachers in all courses at the end of each
semester. The evaluation is done electronically and anonymously. In addition, and evaluate the
quality of textbooks and instruments in the laboratory and used in practice. Academic staff
submitted an annual report on recent activities of the Vice-Rector for Education at the latest two
weeks after the final exam. The independent evaluator who is not a member of the academic
staff of Universities, administered evaluation questionnaire, and a member of the study program
(for each program separately) and Dean of the Faculty discusses the research findings as well as
student evaluations and together carried revising the plan for improving professional work.
Semesterally, the members of each program of study reviewed the sufficiency and adequacy of
available facilities, textbooks and teaching aids (instruments, technical equipment ...) and,
according to the findings of the report sent to the Dean, which contains proposals for the
purchase or repair of existing equipment/aids. Program members also reviewed the adequacy of
program information available on the website of the University, and send their proposals and
suggestions in the form of a letter to the Dean.
Course Schedule:
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Week
1
Lesson
/ Date
Topics to be covered
Class activities
Problems/ Assignments
(Homework)
Relevant reading:
Culture and Everday Life (The
New Sociology), David Inglis
An introduction - Culture and
the everyday
Learning objectives
(After this lesson
student will be able to:)
1. Discuss the relation of
society, culture and
everyday life
Pages 1 - 15
2. Define and use the
concepts of culture,
popular culture, art, high
and low culture,
civilization, etc.
3. Consider the social,
learned and arbitrary
functions of culture
4. Analyze cultural
products and objects as
embodiments of ideas,
beliefs and values of a
social group
2
Culture, “nature” and
everyday life
Civilization and Its
Discontents, Sigmund
Freud
Techniques of the Body,
Marcel Mauss
Pages 16 - 27
1. Explain the ways in
which the everyday
practices of the human
body are influenced by
cultural phenomena
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2. Examine the role which
cultural forces play in the
organization and
management of human
bodies
3. Define ideas, attitudes
and symbols as
manifestations of cultural
forces
4. Understand Freud’s
psychological theory of
civilization and the
concepts of id, ego and
superego
5. Analyze Mauss’ theory
of the cultured body
6. Define the relation
between gender, social
class and body techniques
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Modern culture and everyday
life
Sceince and Sociology,
Max Weber
Society and Culture
Bundle RC: The
Philosophy of Money,
Georg Simmel
Pages 27 - 53
1. Understand how some
of the ways in which
humans operate on a daily
basis are shaped by
cultural forces of the
modern West
2. Consider everyday
issues, such as
making music, going to the
supermarket, playing
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sport, driving a car,
choosing clothes,
decorating the home,
etc.from a sociological
standpoint
3. Distinguish and define
Weber’s concepts of
Zweckrational and
Wertrational
4. Define the meaning of
social roles, role
ambivalence, detached
and personal aspects of
professional roles
5. Analyze Simmel’s
theory of the money
mentality
6. Consider the concepts
of style as a result of
individualization and
rationalization
7. Define the concepts of
authenticity, new
modernism, postmodernity, late modernity,
cultural exhaustion etc.
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“High”, “popular” and “low”
cultures in everyday life
Culture and anarchy,
Matthew Arnold
Pages 54 -77
1. Define and distinguish
the concepts of high,
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mass, low, and popular
culture
Adorno on Popular
Culture, Robert W. Witkin
2. Explore the realm of
popular culture – films, TV
programs, magazines, etc.
Stargazing: Hollywood and
Female
Spectatorship, Jackie
Stacey
3. Analyze Adorno’s and
Arnold’s theory of art and
high culture
4. Explore mass culture as
a product of the modern
capitalist society
5. Consider Stacey’s study
of the Hollywood film
industry and female
spectatorship
6. Examine low culture as
a product of the working
classes and the
disadvantaged minorities
Student presentations
Student presentations
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4&5
Globalization, culture and
everyday life
The Lexus and the Olive
Tree, Thomas Friedman
How Globalisation is
Reshaping Our Lives,
Anthony Giddens
Pages 77-95
1. Define the concept of
globalization and its
effects on the cultural
forces that shape our
everyday lives
2. Analyze various
sociological views on
globalization
3.Explore the relation of
local, national and global
phenomena and forces in
modern culture
4. Define the concepts of
global culture, cultural
imperialism, culture
industries, etc.
5. Analyze the processes
of hybridization and
creolization as the
interweaving of separate
cultural patterns, ideas,
tastes, styles and attitudes
6. Explore global cuisine
as a product of mass
production and
globalization
7. Define and understand
the concept of
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cosmopolitanism
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6&7
Ethnicity and everyday life
.
Outline of a Theory of
Practice, Pierre Bordieu
Ethnicity and Everyday Life: The
New Sociology,
Christian Karner
The Presentation of Self in Pages 15-48
Everyday Life, Erving
Goffman
Everyday Life in the
Modern World, Henri
Lefebvre
1. Understand the
relations between social
groups, individuals,
traditions and
circumstances
2. Define and use the
concepts of ethnicity,
culture/habitus,
crisis/politics, power,
resistance, reflexivity etc.
3. Analyze ethnicity as
structures of action, a way
of seeing and a structure
of feeling
4. Analyze Goffman’s
theory of social life as a
series of theatrical (or
‘dramaturgical’)metaphors
5. Explore the
characteristics of everyday
life in regard to the
historical context
Midterm exam
8&9
Power and classification,
meaning and resistance
Midterm exam
Rethinking Ethnicity,
Richard Jenkins
The Practice of Everyday
Life, De Certeau
Pages 48 - 69
1. Explore ethnic
communities and identities
and the way in which they
rely on social processes of
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classification
2. Distinguish and define
the concepts of social
categorization and group
identification
The
Will to Knowledge, Michel
Foucault
3. Understand the relation
between history,
exclusion, culture,
oppression and
classification
4. Analyze Foucault’s
analytic of internal power
and resistance
10 & 11
Identity, diaspora, hybridity
The Question of Cultural
Identity, Stuart Hall
Pages 70-99
1. Explore various
conceptualizations of
identity
2. Define the concepts of
identity, diaspora and
hybridity
3. Analyze Hall’s theory of
ethnicity constructed
across social boundaries
12 & 13
Ethnic majorities, “the
stranger” and everyday life
Pages 100-126
1. Analyze the relationship
between the self and the
Other and the ways in
which it is influenced by
politics, the media, ethnic
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majorities and dominant
social groups
2. Define the concepts of
anthropoemic strategies of
removal
and anthropophagic
strategies of ‘ingestion’
3. Define and distinguish
the concepts of
hegemonic and counter
hegemonic discourse -
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14 & 15
Forced migrations and
structures of fear in the age of
globalization
The Information Age,
Manuel Castells
Risk Society, Ulrich Beck
Pages 127-164
1. Understand the
sociology of globalization
2. Analyze human
consequences of
globalization
3. Explore ethnicity in
forced migrant’s everyday
lives
5. Analyze Franz’ theory of
war, dislocation and
gendered structures of
feeling
6. Define the concepts of
instrumental ethnicity,
liquid modernity and ethnic
majorities
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Final exam
Final exam
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