Sosiologian nykykeskusteluja, 5 op

Brief description

This course provides an overview on the current research on cultural stratification – a field of study in sociology of culture focusing on the link between inequalities and cultural practices. Special emphasis will be given to projects and concrete research examples currently ongoing among the researchers working on the topic at Tampere University, such as the stratification and dynamics of cultural participation, media usage, culinary tastes, cultural reproduction, and cultural practices in relation to social networks and politics.

Tentative programme (changes possible)

The sessions start always at 14:15 and last about 60 minutes (the first meeting 90 minutes)

21 Oct (meeting 1): Intro: What is cultural stratification & practicalities (Semi Purhonen)

28 Oct (meeting 2): Cultural participation and non-participation (Riie Heikkilä)

· Homework 1 (the deadline for submitting the assignment to the respective Moodle folder is Monday 2 Nov 4 p.m.)

4 Nov (meeting 3): Cultural reproduction and intergenerational transmission of cultural capital (Jarmo Kallunki)

11 Nov (meeting 4): Social networks and taste (Ossi Sirkka)

18 Nov (meeting 5): Cultural omnivore, tolerance and food (Taru Lindblom)

· Homework 2 (the deadline for submitting the assignment to the respective Moodle folder is Monday 23 Nov 4 p.m.)

25 Nov (meeting 6): Politics and cultural consumption (Sara Sivonen)

2 Dec (meeting 7): The stratification of media usage & wrapping up (Semi Purhonen)

9 Dec: The deadline for submitting the learning diary to the respective Moodle folder

On practical arrangements

Please note that the course will be pretty intensive and passing it will require for all students self-directed working and reading outside the scheduled meetings! The course is comprised of recorded video lectures, thematic readings, discussion sessions (i.e. the meetings mentioned in the tentative programme above) and written assignments (two homeworks and a learning diary). Concerning the meetings no. 2–7, there will be lecture recordings (approx. 45 mins each) that need to be watched along with reading the respective background article always before the meetings that take place on Wednesdays 2 p.m. The recordings will be published on Monday morning on the respective week at latest. It is mandatory to be present and active in the discussion sessions (max. one absence can be compensated for by additional assigned work). Being continuously engaged in the course material over the course will facilitate your learning.

Moodle platform will be used for providing basic information about the course and the guidelines for assignments (the learning diary and the homeworks), submitting assignments and evaluating the assignments. Microsoft Teams will be used for organizing live discussion sessions as well as for making all lecture videos and course readings available for students. There will be direct links to Teams in Moodle platform, but all students will also be invited to the Teams group of the course by e-mail. All the course materials are in English, but the course assignments can be written in English or Finnish. If it turns out (hopefully not!) that all the participating students are Finnish speaking, the language of the course will be switched to Finnish.

Assessment

Active participation in discussion sessions: 20%

Homeworks: 20% each

Learning diary: 40%

Background readings

(tba when the course starts)