Key concept KCSS week 1:
LEARNING OBJECTIVE
After this lecture students should be able to:
● Understand the course structure, assessments, and studying
expectations for this class,
● Recognize the basic principles in the study of sociology and social
sciences,
● Recall a brief history of the development of Western sociology,
● Distinguish between different perspectives in sociology.
CHAPTER 1
- The nature of sociology
- How sociological perspectives help in everyday life
- Some problems in doing sociology
- The development of sociology
CHAPTER 2
- The classical ways of thinking about society
- The newer perspectives in sociology
- A global perspective in sociology
- Globalisation
1
Key concept KCSS week 2:
LEARNING OBJECTIVE
After this lecture students should be able to:
● Recall different kinds of societies,
● Apply classical sociological perspectives to the study of modern
society,
● Define the term culture and its various components (symbols,
language, values, norms, material culture),
● Describe and analyze contemporary cultural diversity.
After this tutorial students should be able to:
● Give examples of the concepts related to the basic principles of
sociology, societies, and culture,
● Evaluate strengths and weaknesses of different theoretical
perspectives and concepts introduced in the first two weeks.
CHAPTER 4
- The different types of society throughout history
- The rise of modern industrial societies and Marx, Durkheim and
Weber’s approaches to these changes
- The broad shapes of contemporary world societies
- The emergence of a ‘modern China’ and a ‘modern Europe’
CHAPTER 5
- The meaning of ‘culture’, its development and its major
components: language, symbols, values, norms and material
cultures
- The diversities and changes that are found within cultures
- Key examples of cultures: Muslim cultures and youth cultures
2
- The development of cultural studies
Key concept KCSS week 3:
3
LEARNING OBJECTIVE
After this lecture, the students should be able to:
● Assess different types of social groups, organizations and associated
concepts,
● Evaluate different theories in microsociology.
After this tutorial students should be able to:
● Give examples of the concepts related to culture and societies,
● Apply the concept of cultural misunderstanding to your academic
and professional life.
CHAPTER 6
- Social life in different kinds of social groups
- Living in bureaucracies and organisations
- Life as ‘McDonaldisation’
- Life in an age of mobile phones and personal computers
- The changing experience of face-to-face life
CHAPTER 7
- Micro-sociology and the ways in which sociologists study
everyday life
- How we become social and develop biographies across the life
course
- How everyday life is constructed and negotiated
- How our identities, bodies and emotions are socially formed
4
Key concept KCSS week 4:
LEARNING OBJECTIVE
● Understand the inequalities connected to gender, and abilities
● Distinguish the key discourses and terms around gender, and
disabilities
● Examine patriarchy and feminism in contemporary societies
After this tutorial students should be able to:
● Compare different concepts related to inequality;
● Evaluate how different inequalities manifest in contemporary
societies.
CHAPTER 12
- The distinction between sex, gender, sexism, patriarchy and gender
stratification
- How we become gendered and learning gender identities
- The nature of the Women’s Movement in challenging gender
stratification
- The sociological approaches to sexuality
- The stratification of sexualities
- What lesbian and gay life/queer theory is about
(identity, sex & gender, roles & performances & segregation, socialization,
impairment & disability, sociological approach & shortcomings,
intersectionality)
CHAPTER 14
Key concept KCSS week 5:
5
LEARNING OBJECTIVE
● Identify the different kinds of inequalities and how they can be
related to each other (intersectionality);
● Understand the role of stratification in various societies and cultures;
● Contextualize inequalities on a global scale, situating the different
actors and the role they play in producing, challenging, or
maintaining inequalities;
● Evaluate inequalities in contemporary societies.
After this tutorial students should be able to:
● Give examples of this week's course concepts
CHAPTER 9
- The scale of economic inequality across countries
- Whether such inequalities are growing across the globe
- The extent of poverty across the globe
- The key correlates of this inequality, such as technology, population
growth and global power
- The ways such disparities can still exist in the twenty-first century
- Contrasting explanations for the ‘under development of the world’
CHAPTER 11
Key concept KCSS week 6:
6
LEARNING OBJECTIVE
● Identify different types of economies,
● Detect different trends in work in 21st century,
● Explain the concept of consumer society.
After this tutorial students should be able to:
● Write a script for a short video about a concept studied in this class.
CHAPTER 15
- The changing nature of the economy
- The different kinds of economic system
- The experience of work in the post-industrial economy
- The organisation of business and corporations
- The role of consumption in the modern economy
- The future of the economy of the twenty-first century?
CHAPTER 19
- Ways of understanding religion
- The organisation of religions
- The variety of global religions
- Religion in modern society and the problem of secularisation
- New developments in religion