ISS-1112 Structure and Social Action: Communities, Markets and
Polities
Code
Weight of the course
Period
Course Leader
Lecturer
Teaching Methods
Modes of Assessment
Contact
ISS-1112
3 ECTS
TERM 1
Georgina Gomez
Georgina Gomez, Amrita Chhachhi
Participatory Lecture, Tutorials, Workshops
Written Exam: 100%
Cisca Vorselman
Learning objectives
Students will develop an understanding of social life as a combination of stability and change. They
will become familiar with fundamental concepts in sociology and by the end of the course they will
have learnt to use the concepts discussed in the course to analyse social structures and actions.
Course description
This course proposes to connect sociological theory with every day experiences. It aims to improve
students’ understanding of social reality by using a series of sociological concepts like structure and
agency, division of labour, differentiation and cohesion, power, legitimacy, class and gender.
The course is organised in lectures by thematic groups, rather than theoretical paradigms. It reads
social processes across the social, economic and political domains, an approach that follows the
perspective of the classical sociologists. Max Weber, for example, titled one of his main works
“Economy and Society” and Emile Durkheim considered the division of labour in production processes
as a factor of social integration.
During the course, a number of sociological concepts will be brought to life and used to reflect on
issues like why we work extra hours that we are not paid for, what entitles our leaders to command us
-and we behave accordingly- or why we engage in efforts to push for social change. The course is
suitable for students with no previous knowledge of sociology but with a definite interest in sociological
approaches to the economy, political economy and organisations.
Indicative Readings
Calhoun, C., J. Gerteis, J. Moody, S. Pfaff and I. Virk (eds) (2007) Classical sociological theory. (2nd
edn) Oxford: Blackwell