Sociology Past Paper - Week 8 2024

SOCIOLOGY WEEK 8 WEEK 8: Cities and urban life SESSION 8/1 The Chicago School of Sociology on urbanization SESSION 8/2 Religious Pluralism in the city. This class will be taught by Valeria Fabretti. GUEST LECTURE (session 9/3, only Canale A) by Prof. Patrick Le Galès (SciencesPo) "The Rise and...

SOCIOLOGY WEEK 8 WEEK 8: Cities and urban life SESSION 8/1 The Chicago School of Sociology on urbanization SESSION 8/2 Religious Pluralism in the city. This class will be taught by Valeria Fabretti. GUEST LECTURE (session 9/3, only Canale A) by Prof. Patrick Le Galès (SciencesPo) "The Rise and Fall of the Sociology of the Global City" Readings for Week 8: Textbook reading Giddens, Anthony & Sutton, Philip W. (2021). Sociology. 9th Edition. London: Polity. In chapter 13 "Cities and urban life", read the sections "Theorizing urbanism", "Community and the urban personality", "The Chicago School", "City spaces, surveillance and inequality", the boxes "Classic studies 13.1. and "Classic studies 13.2" and box "Using you sociological immagination 13.1.": p. 516-525 Additional reading 1 Simmel, Georg: “The Metropolis and Mental Life”, in: Giddens, Anthony & Sutton, Philip W. Sociology. Introductory Readings. 4th Edition. London: Polity, 2022: 93-97. Additional reading 2 Fabretti, Valeria, Maria Chiara Giorda and Piero Vereni. 2019. “Increasing plurality and neglected pluralism: Religious Diversity in the Suburbs of Rome”, in: Bock, J.J.; Fahy, J. and Everett, S. (eds.) Emergent Religious Pluralisms. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham: 167-193.  ENQUIRY 8/1 One day in Luiss library SESSION 8/1 The Chicago School of Sociology on urbanization Quiz on topics of urban sociology https://etc.ch/jBzC Quiz debriefing Settlement sizes and terminologies: villages, towns, cities, megacities (= a cluster of densly settled areas around one major city forming a continuous network, ex. Mexico City), conurbation (= a cluster of cities and towns forming a continuous network, ex. Milan Metropolitan Area, Ruhrgebiet in Germany). Rome is somewhat in-between a city and a megacity, terminology that is sometimes used is: metropolitan city. Mobility: In 1950, only 30 per cent of the world’s population were urban- dwellers, but by 2007 the number of people living in urban areas overtook the number of people in rural areas for the first time (UN 2010). By 2050 the global urban population is forecast to reach 70 per cent. Georg Simmel (1958-1918) Born and lived in Berlin, studied philosophy, remained academic outsider in a largely antisemitic German academy at the time. Co-founder of the German Society for Sociology with Max Weber and Ferdinand Toennies. Like Weber, Simmel was interested in social interaction. In this course, he is relevant for his works on the city, which influenced the Chicago School of Sociology. The Metropolis and Mental Life (1903) Sociological perspective on the city Sociological perspective acc. to CW Mills: human agency, personal troubles, biography AND (different from) Social structures, history Simmer made a similar argument long before Mills: the individual is in-between two forces – individuality of existence and social forces. The city as a space that creates a specific form of mindset and social relations. Simmel attributes different «mindsets» to city and rural life City life >> Urbanism Rural life «rapid telescoping of changing «feelings and emotional images» relationships» «pronounced differences within «steady equilibrium of unbroken what is grasped at a single customs» glance» «peaceful and stable milieu» «unexpectedness of violent stimuli» «The metropolitan type reacts primarily in a rational manner.» Nostalgia of community in German sociology Max Weber, Georg Simmel and Ferdinand Toennies all exhibited a sociological perspective that focused on social interactions. They all shared a sense of preoccupation and «loss» that modernization brings to society: loss of community, loss of spontaneity. Instead, they highlighted the rise of individualism, rationalism and bureaucratic relations. They projected this overall «pessimism» into urban sociology. Film METROPOLIS >> Trailer: https://youtu.be/v- KP85zMV2U?si=ZQGIqjYkHBZgXzk0 This influential German science- fiction film presents a highly stylized futuristic city where a beautiful and cultured utopia exists above a bleak underworld populated by mistreated workers. When the privileged youth Freder (Gustav Fröhlich) discovers the grim scene under the city, he becomes intent on helping the workers. He befriends the rebellious teacher Maria (Brigitte Helm), but this puts him at odds with his authoritative father, leading to greater conflict. Chicago School of Urban Sociology 1920s to 1940s Names and concepts to remember: Peter Park: urban ecology - Robert Park studied with Simmel in Germany Louis Wirth: urbanism as a way of life - influenced by Simmel and Toennies; born in Germany, grew up in a rural setting before moving to the USA as teenager. Urbanism as a way of life acc. to Wirth «The influences which cities exert upon the social life of man Wirth’s picture of are greater than the ratio of the urban population would modern cities indicate, for the city is not only in ever larger degrees the dwelling-place and the workshop of modern man, but it is needs to be the initiating and controlling center of economic, political, expanded by and cultural life that has drawn the most remote parts of the acknowledging world into its orbit and woven diverse areas, peoples, and that city life can activities into a cosmos.” Wirth 1938, cit. in Giddens/Sutton. lead to the “Secondary contacts” (as opposed to “primary contacts” with building of family members) with salespeople, people on public transport etc. communities Weak inter-personal bonds and weak solidarity rather than always destroying them. “Fast pace of life”  Ecological approach to the study of the human community … In the Urban ecology acc. to Parks process of community growth there is a development from the simple to In the natural world, organisms tend to be distributed in the complex, from the general to systematic ways so that, over time, a balance or equilibrium the specialized; first to increasing between different species is achieved. The Chicago School of centralization and later to a sociology argued that the siting of major urban settlements and decentralization process … As the the distribution of different types of neighbourhood and social community grows there is not groups within them could be understood in terms of similar merely a multiplication of houses principles. and roads but a process of Parks: “a city is a great sorting mechanism which … infallibly differentiation and segregation selects out of the population as a whole the individuals best takes place as well. Residences and suited to live in a particular region or a particular milieu” (1952: institutions spread out in centrifugal 79). fashion... The structural growth of Sociological use of concepts taken from biological ecology: community takes place in competition, invasion and succession. successional sequence not unlike Different neighbourhoods develop through the adjustments the successional stages in the made by inhabitants as they struggle to gain their livelihoods. A development of the plant city can be pictured as a map of areas with distinct and formation. contrasting social characteristics.  First published 1925 “The city, from the point of view of this paper, is something more than a congeries of individual men and of social conveniences—streets, buildings, electric lights, tramways, and telephones, etc.; something more, also, than a mere constellation of institutions and administrative devices—courts, hospitals, schools, police, and civil functionaries of various sorts. The city is, rather, a state of mind, a body of customs and traditions, and of the organized attitudes and sentiments that inhere in these customs and are transmitted with this tradition. The city is not, in other words, merely a physical mechanism and an artificial construction. It is involved in the vital processes of the people who compose it; it is a product of nature, and particularly of human nature.” Urban ecology and urbanism as way of life as an example for theoretical pluralism There is actually a productive contradiction between the approach by Wirth’s urbanism as way of life and Park’s urban ecology. Urbanism as way of life theorizes the diminishing of communities. Urban ecology theorizes the growth of new forms of communities. Both approaches can be empirically demonstrated, depending on the methods and data that are used. One will explain some phenomena better than the other. Both have explanatory power. Burgess in «The City», 1925 Aspects of urban sociology that are relevant in your research projects Social inequalities in the city Gentrification Inner-city decay Most of today’s urban sociology brings together a conflict theory perspective (focus on social inequality, difference between groups/classes) and a social interactionist perspective. Giddens/Sutton call this «theoretical synthesis». This table of major sociological theorsists and schools in Giddens&Sutton is very useful. In the perlego version it is not colour coded like in the book, therefore this picture: The colour code does not come out well in the picture,: Max Weber and Simmel are categorized as «Interactionism» (pink) W.E.B. Du Bois, Norbert Elias, Anthony Giddens, Ulrich Beck and Manuel Castells are categorized as «Theoretical synthesis» (violet) Harriet Martineau, Simone de Beauvoir, Betty Friedan, Judith Butler and Vandana Shiva are categorized as «Feminism» (red) Talking about the city through maps: #mapparoma https://www.mapparoma.i nfo/mappe/ Urban sociology and human geography Urban sociology is the study of human interaction in urban areas, whereas urban geography investigates the impact of urban processes on the physical and human, plus nonhuman, world. «Urban studies» as transdisciplinary field. «Cities are massive generators of economic growth, ideas, and entrepreneurship; urbanization globally is escalating; and cities have often gone beyond national governments in enacting more stringent climate change and socially just policies and practices.» Source: https://www.bu.edu/cas/arts-sciences/article/3-questions-with- loretta-lees/ Have you ever heard of «sanctuary cities»? A sanctuary city is a municipality that limits or denies its cooperation with the national government in enforcing immigration law. What is a sanctuary city? https://youtu.be/_NC_AIsU8aA?si=iGLi HQJI1SXJHv4i Discussion and Feedback of the mid-term exam OUTLOOK TO WEEK 9: Feminism, Gender and Sexuality SESSION 9/1 Feminism, Gender identity and social constructionist theories SESSION 9/2 BOOK PRESENTATION “The Global Fight Against LGBTI Rights” by Phillip Ayoub and Kristina Stoeckl Readings for Week 9: Textbook readings Giddens, Anthony & Sutton, Philip W. (2021). Sociology. 9th Edition. London: Polity. In chapter 3 "Theories and perspectives", read the sections "Feminist theories" and "Poststructuralism and postmodernity": p. 88-93. You have already read these for class 5, but it is a good idea to re-read them now. In chapter 7 "Gender and Sexuality", read the sections "Gender, sex and sexuality", "Gender identity", "Social constructions of gender and sexuality": p. 245-250 In chapter 7 "Gender and Sexuality", read the sections "Gender inequality", "Feminist perspectives" (and subsections) and "Feminist movements": p. 256-266. Additional reading 1 Beauvoir, Simone: “Woman – The Second Sex?”, in: Giddens, Anthony & Sutton, Philip W. Sociology. Introductory Readings. 3rd Edition. London: Polity, 2010: 143-146. Additional reading 2 Read the Preface (1999) by Judith Butler to her book "Gender Troubles". Also read section 1.I. "Woman" as the subject of feminism. You can find the book on perlego: Butler, Judith (2011) Gender Trouble. 1st edn. Taylor and Francis. Available at: https://www.perlego.com/book/1607112/gender-trouble-feminism-and-the-subversion-of-identity-pdf (Accessed: 3 June 2023).