Public and Private Spheres Dynamics in the Process of Urbanization/De-urbanization

Master 2021/2022

Category 'Best Course for Broadening Horizons and Diversity of Knowledge and Skills'

Type: Elective course (Sociology of Public and Business Sphere)

Area of studies: Sociology

Delivered by: School of Sociology

Where: Faculty of Social Sciences

When: 2 year, 1, 2 module

Mode of studies: offline

Open to: students of one campus

Instructors: Nikita Pokrovsky

Master’s programme: Sociology of Public and Business Sphere

Language: English

ECTS credits: 4

Contact hours: 32

Full Syllabus

Abstract

According to the UN Population Fund, since 2007 for the first time in history over half of Earth population lives in cities. But what is a city? And what is the nature of everyday life in it? What, to invert the title of Louis Wirth’s famous paper, does ‘urbanism’ mean as a way of life? In this course we will unfold the nature of urban everyday life from a broadly construed nested ecological/transactional standpoint, that is, looking at multiple levels of organization of life (from a single person going about their routine daily activities; through the interactions between multiple people as they self-organize into various social forms of common living, such as neighborhoods or ‘the public’; through the spatial embeddedness of human patterns of common activities in urban spatial and architectural forms; to the broad processes of urban change in context of globalization). We will examine these levels as they all project upon everyday life—that ‘common denominator,’ as Henri Lefebvre termed it, of the various facets and dimensions of social and economic life. The main purpose of this course is to understand urbanism as a complex process, and to examine how the various dimensions and domains of urban living arise out of everyday life and, simultaneously, enable, structure, organize, restrict, and project themselves into everyday life. Thus, our point of reference at all times will be the lived experience of a person inhabiting an urban milieu. We will bring in perspectives from urban sociology, urban psychology, and urban geography to explore these complexities.

Learning Objectives

As a result, students should: Know: - seminal texts in urban-studies - basic concepts and principles of urban-studies and main areas of research on which this discipline focuses. Be able to: - construct productive research questions using approaches of urban-studies - apply the concepts of urban-studies mainstreaming to their research designs in comparative social research - to distinguish, collect and apply various social data to urban- issues - to criticize urban-studies. Have: - the skill to criticize and evaluate the quality of outcome of different forms of urbanstudies - the skill to meaningfully construct urban- research questions - the skill to model research in the field of urban-studies.

Expected Learning Outcomes

знать основные подходы к изучению хозяйства и общества, выработанные в экономической социологии
знать основные принципы и понятия общей социологии, ключевые теоретические подходы к изучению общества и его подсистем
уметь анализировать события и факты с позиций социологии
уметь применять разнообразные аналитические инструменты, используемые в современных экономико-социологических исследованиях
усовершенствовать навыки публичных выступлений и работы в группе

Course Contents

SESSION ONE: Globalization and the City.
SESSION TWO: Person-Environment Transactions and the Nested Ecology of Urban Living.
SESSION THREE: Perceiving, Remembering, and Going About the City
SESSION FOUR: City Plan: Concentric Circles, Grids, Complex Patterns (and Rivers and Mountains Too)
SESSION FIVE: Orders of Public Interaction.
SESSION SIX: Culture, Community, and Class: Courtyard, Neighborhood, District
SESSION SEVEN: Globalization, Mobility, and Splintering Urbanism
SESSION EIGHT: Urban Futures: Concentration or De-Urbanization
SESSION NINE: Phenomena of panic and disorder in psychology and sociology
SESSION TEN: What do we mean by society? What is Risk Society?

Assessment Elements

Weekly readings
The course attendees are expected to complete the weekly readings ahead of the class sessions.
Final test
Weekly readings
The course attendees are expected to complete the weekly readings ahead of the class sessions.
Final test

Interim Assessment

2021/2022 2nd module
Grading Four position papers make up 30% of the final grade – 7.5 percentage point per paper. 5 Class presentation makes up 10% of the final grade and is optional. Activity and participation in class work constitutes 20% of the grade. The oral exam makes up 40%. If the final grade is non-integer, it is rounded according to algebraic rules. If has a half (.5) at the end, we are rounding upward.

Course Syllabus