Learning outcomes

By the end of the course, students will be able to:

· distinguish a sociological approach from a spontaneous or common-sense interpretation of a social phenomenon;

· formulate a sociological question based on an observation, a situation or an empirical puzzle;

· identify and explain the main concepts and lines of reasoning associated with the authors and schools of thought studied;

·         apply sociological concepts to analyse a specific social situation or phenomenon;

· compare different analytical frameworks and demonstrate how they lead to different ways of examining the same phenomenon;

· formulate a sociological hypothesis and identify the empirical data that would enable it to be tested;

·         put contemporary societal transformations and developments in sociological analytical frameworks into perspective.

Goals

The course aims to introduce students to the sociological approach and way of thinking, and to provide them with an initial set of tools for examining and analysing the social world. More specifically, it aims to:

• understand the distinctive nature of sociology as an empirical discipline and a field of inquiry;

• learn to take a step back from common-sense assumptions and to transform a social issue into a sociological question;

• discover the main traditions and concepts that have shaped the development of the discipline;

• understand how behaviours, identities and interactions are embedded within social relations, structures and processes;

• learn to draw on different sociological frameworks to examine and interpret contemporary social phenomena;

• raise students’ awareness of how societal transformations also lead sociology to re-centre and renew its own categories of analysis.

Content

The course offers an introduction to sociology as an empirical discipline and a specific way of examining the social world. It begins by introducing students to the sociological approach: investigation, challenging common-sense assumptions, taking a step back, and formulating a research question based on a sociological enigma. It then presents several classical foundations of the discipline, through the works of Émile Durkheim, Max Weber, W.E.B. Du Bois and Pierre Bourdieu, demonstrating how different sociological traditions enable us to conceptualise the relationships between individuals, social structures, inequalities and power. The course then examines the processes of socialisation and the social construction of identities and interactions, drawing in particular on the approaches of Berger and Luckmann, Norbert Elias and Erving Goffman. Finally, it introduces students to contemporary developments in sociology and the transformation of its analytical frameworks under the influence of globalisation and the questioning of certain traditional categories, drawing in particular on feminist and intersectional approaches, the spatial turn and global sociology. Throughout the course, theories and concepts are viewed as tools for formulating questions and empirically analysing social phenomena, rather than as a theoretical corpus to be reproduced.

Assessment method

Assessment (across both sessions) is based on two complementary components:

· continuous assessment as part of the practical work (30 per cent);

· a two-hour individual written examination (70 per cent).

The assessment therefore emphasises understanding, critical analysis and the application of sociological reasoning rather than merely the reproduction of knowledge.

Language of instruction

French