The course consists of the following lectures:

Pekka Räsänen (UTU): Consumption from the perspective of economic sociology

Taru Lindblom(UTU): Food consumption, status struggle and  economic inequality

Atte Oksanen (UTA): Debt problems and life-course transitions

Mette Ranta(JYU): Towards youth financial independence: Psychological and societal factors

Minna Autio(HU): Sustainability in consumption: goods, services and innovations

Semi Purhonen(UTA): Cultural stratification: Starting points and recent debates

Terhi-Anna Wilska(JYU): Consumption, necessities and excess

Turo-Kimmo Lehtonen & Olli Pyyhtinen(UTA): Consumption and waste

In addition, thematic readings will be suggested for each lecture. All the lecture videos and course readings are available for students in the Moodle platform. 

Students from university of Tampere, Turku or Jyväskylä may enrol via email (anu.sirola[at]uta.fi) to get the access to the course?s Moodle platform.

This online course can be started and accomplished during the periods I and II. Due date for the course assignments is 12th December.

The “African and Black Diaspora Studies Research Seminar” is a monthly, interdisciplinary meeting to examine the theoretical premises of African and Black diaspora studies. The seminar consists of collective reading, commenting and discussing articles, book chapters and other manuscripts written by the participants and/or by key scholars in African and Black diaspora studies. Some seminar meetings will feature guest scholars from universities in Finland and abroad.

Participants of the seminar are researchers and PhD students from different Finnish universities and research institutes.

Timetable: The first seminar meeting will be at the University of Tampere on September 21 (Thursday), from 12:00 to 14:00. The seminar meetings are arranged once a month in Tampere or Helsinki. Those who would like to join the seminar (after the first meeting in September 2017), please contact the seminar assistant Liban Sheikh (sheikh.liban.b@student.uta.fi) and send us the following information:  

• Name and affiliation (Department/Institute, University)
• Contact information (Email address and phone number)
• A short description (max. 300 words) of your research interests and ongoing projects. In addition, let us know why you would like to participate this seminar.

This course strives to build bridges between experimental research on decision making in cognitive science, behavioral economics and organizational behavior – especially judgement and decision making (JDM) research - and broader sociological research. Sociological theorists have proposed numerous general sociological theories of action for theoretically grounding case-specific empirical research theories. Sociologists’ skepticism towards the utility of experimental behavioral research is understandable, as most experimental designs deliberately aim to isolate individual behavior from the social context of action. This course is premised on the conviction that sociological and behavioral research perspectives on action are complementary, not conflicting, and that cross fertilization of these fields holds more promise for theoretically ambitious social research than new iterations of disciplinarily isolated sociological theories of action. The course covers examples of the use of insights from the behavioral sciences in sociological settings, drawing inferences about decision strategies from new sources of data (e.g., online behavior), as well as a philosophy of science perspective on social scientific explanation.

The course format is a reading seminar with recent research articles as course material. In addition, each student will make a short presentation on an empirical research article related to the methodological topic in question. Default example articles are provided by the teacher, but students can also make suggestions based on their interests (such as their thesis topic).

Tentative schedule:

1. Introduction
2. History and theory of decision research I
3. History and theory of decision research II
4. Philosophy of social explanation
5. Preference construction
6. Situationalism and its critics
7. Dual-process theories
8. Emotions and decisions
9. Scarcity and decisions
10. Decision heuristics and on-line data
11. Social norms
12. Political psychology
13. Behavioral addictions

Level:

PhD-students and advanced students of social sciences and philosophy students interested in philosophy of social science.

Participants write short (2-3 page) essays on three topics which they see as most relevant for their studies as well as provide a presentation of a selected topic. The writing assignments are also based on the provided background material.

The course builds on lectures and readings on the dimensions of urban marginalization, and ethnographic fieldwork carried out by the students. The fieldwork will be located in a neighbourhood of Tampere.

The course requirements include reading assignments as well as ca. 300 word reflections on the reading each time; conducting the assigned fieldwork as well as ca. 600 edited field notes each time; and a presentation at the final conference, composed on the basis of the previously mentioned writing tasks. Presence in all course sessions is necessary.

Programme (venue TBA)

Jan 11 Introduction: Social Dimensions of Urban Marginalization: Lotta Junnilainen           

Jan 18 Visit to the fieldsite + Introduction to Tampere City Marginalization Indicators: Lotta Junnilainen, Liisa Häikiö, Eeva Luhtakallio, Jenni Mäki (City of Tampere)

Jan 25 Urban ethnography in practice + Planning the fieldwork: Lotta Junnilainen

Feb 1 Political Dimensions of Urban Marginalization (Reading workshop and lecture): Eeva Luhtakallio

Reading Period + Getting in to the field (3 weeks)

Feb 22 Reading workshop + How to proceed?: Lotta Junnilainen  

Fieldwork Period I (2 weeks)

March 8 Fieldwork Clinic I: Lotta Junnilainen

March 15 Economic Dimensions of Urban Marginalization (Reading workshop and lecture): Liisa Häiki

Fieldwork Period II (3 weeks)

April 5 Fieldwork Clinic II: Lotta Junnilainen 

April 12 Final Conference

Max 20 students. Acceptance on the course depends on previous studies in social sciences.

The course introduces the latest methodological developments related to causal inference in the social sciences. The course begins with the basics of the formal theory of causal reasoning (by Judea Pearl) and its philosophical foundations. We will then explore more specific issues and methodologies, such as the concept of social mechanism, how to construct a good causal variable, quasi-experimental designs, field and laboratory experiments in the social sciences, and case-based process tracing. The course format is a reading seminar with recent methodological research articles as course material. In addition, each student will make a short presentation on an empirical research article related to the methodological topic in question. Default example articles are provided by the teacher, but students can also make suggestions based on their interests (such as their thesis topic).

Course outline:

1. Introduction
2. Foundations of Causal Inference I
3. Foundations of Causal Inference II
4. Foundations of Causal Inference III
5. Causal Mechanisms and social theory
6. Mechanistic thinking and statistics
7. What is a good causal variable?
8. Quasi-experimental strategies
9. Qualitative evidence and process tracing I: within-case
10. Qualitative evidence and process tracing II: comparative process tracing
11. Experimental social science: field experiments
12. Experimental social science: laboratory experiments

Target audience: masters and PhD students in the social sciences and philosophy students interested in philosophy of science. Maximum number of participants: 12.