The course aims to help students understand the rich diversity in rural society, with an emphasis on the interdependencies between urban and rural contexts. Current issues and social problems experienced by rural populations and how sociology is used to understand and address issues affecting rural communities are explored. Movement from a rural to an urban society in both developing and Western industrial countries represents a social, demographic, and economic transformation of profound significance. Urban sociology attempts systematically to describe and analyze this transformation from both a dynamic and structural perspective. The central question of this course is: How does environment impact people? In this respect, the course will explore the social-psychological and ecological organization as well as the political and economic structure of the city, with a special focus on the patterns of inequality related to the mediations class, race, aboriginality, ethnicity and gender. We will examine social inequality as a social problem in city living in its own right, as well as a source of urban social problems such as homelessness, poverty, crime, immigration, prostitution, divorce, chronic unemployment and mental illness.
- Teacher: Ordem Maglente