Study:	Civil Law - 9. semester Commercial Law - 9. semester Constitutional-Administrative - 9. semester Criminal Law - 9. semester International Law - 9. semester The European Union Law - 9. semester
Code:	171408
ECTS:	4.0
Course coordinators:	prof. dr. sc. Siniša Zrinščak izv. prof. dr. sc. Dario Čepo
Lecturers:	dr. sc. Mateja Čehulić - Lectures
Exam dates:	26. 06. 2023. 10. 07. 2023. 28. 08. 2023. 11. 09. 2023. Exam registration: Studomat

Literature:

Mau, Steffen, Verwiebe, Roland; European Societies; Policy Press (2010), str. 448 Ritzer, George; Introduction to Sociology; Sage (2015), str. 632

Description:

The sociology course is designed to introduce students to the sociological study of society. Sociology focuses on the systematic understanding of social interaction, social organization, social institutions, and social change. Major themes in sociological thinking include the interplay between the individual and society, how society is both stable and changing, the causes and consequences of social inequality, and the social construction of human life. Understanding sociology helps discover and explain social patterns and see how such patterns change over time and in different settings. By making vivid the social basis of everyday life, sociology also develops critical thinking by revealing the social structures and processes that shape diverse forms of human life.

Cognitive Skills:

Knowledge and understanding

After successfully completing the course, students will be able to:

 

Define: basic sociological concepts as basic blocks of sociological theories and explanations of social phenomena. The students should be able to define basic sociological concepts such as socialization, deviance, class, nation, social stratification. They should recognize that these terms appear in everyday speech and should be able to conduct a simple analysis of social phenomena. They should in addition be able to identify the mythic structure of everyday thinking and reach out to its social basis.

 

Explain: how the individual and the society are connected and how the society changes, how the society influences individual behaviour and the relationship of free decision-making and social structures in which it takes place. For example, students will understand how legal norms are changing in parallel with certain social changes. Finally, they will be able to identify what the causes of social inequality are, or why the frequencies of certain occurrences like divorce or changes in the family structure change.

 

Explain: what is a scientific explanation of social phenomena and how it differs from common sense, value or one based on a tradition.

Application

Group and describe: group basic approaches to the analysis of social phenomena and to describe their differences on various examples.

 

Understand: the mechanisms that produce phenomena such as culture, deviance, social stratification, politics, economy, religion, family and kinship, race and ethnicity, nation and nationalism and social change.

 

Apply: the acquired knowledge to explain social phenomena that surround the student of the phenomenon of conflict, ideological interpretation of the world, issues of social relations of ownership, power and belief.

Sketch: the basic contours of explanatory models for explaining the explanation of social phenomena such as culture, deviance, social stratification, politics, economy, religion, family and kinship, race and ethnicity, nation and nationalism and social change.

 

Analysis

Demonstrate: students will be able to distinguish between the causes of phenomena such as culture, deviance, social stratification, politics, economy, religion, family and kinship, race and ethnicity, nation and nationalism and social change. In doing so, they will be able to demonstrate the social determination of these social phenomena.

 

Categorize: types of social phenomena that are important for further analysis of causal relationships such as mechanical and organic solidarity or dimensions of rationalization of law, or basic types of political systems.

 

Analyze: internal logic of creation and functioning of social institutions.

 

Compare: different theoretical approaches to social phenomena. Compare common sense and scientific explanation, knowledge and belief.

 

Synthesis

Construct elementary explanations of social phenomena using and comparing different theoretical approaches. Suggest the best ways to explore a phenomenon.

 

Evaluation

Reconsider: why it is possible to put in a sociological framework for explanation what is taking place in social life. In this way, the students will understand the social determination as a self-explanatory process.

 

Compare: applicability of methods (survey, experiment, observation, content analysis, etc.) to analyze different types of categories-social phenomena. Explain and compare the theoretical frameworks (structural functionalism, conflict theory, symbolic interactionism or evolutionism) in explaining certain social phenomena.

 

Evaluate: advantages and disadvantages of different methods to study certain social phenomena. In addition, they will be able to evaluate advantages and disadvantages of theoretical approaches in explaining various social phenomena.

 

Assess: the extent to which certain research methods can provide answers to the research questions and the extent to which a particular theoretical framework enables the elaboration of answers to the questions formulated, or, in other words, to assess the adequacy of the theoretical approaches and methodologies applied to specific phenomenon being examined.

Practical and Generic Skills:

After successful completion of the course, the students will be able to understand the social determination of certain phenomena and will be able to specify the elements of the sociological approach. By applying the sociological imagination, for example, they will be able to grasp why unemployment or divorce do not need to be understood just as a personal tragedy, but also as a social fact, i.e. as part of a social process.

Students will also increase the capacity of understanding social events. After successfully completed course in sociology they will be able e.g. to follow TV news and analyse reports, understanding the meaning of the concepts of statistical errors in news and reports on public opinion.

By attending the course in sociology the students should develop presentation skills and be able to express their own thoughts.

Matching Assessments to Learning Outcomes:

Knowledge is assessed in seminars, colloquia (mid-term exams, written and oral exams.

 

Mid-term exam and final exam are written forms of assessing knowledge in which the student must demonstrate that s/he is able to define sociological concepts, reproduce explanation of some basic social process, group phenomena, for example, to recognize the phenomena of social integration in a variety of contexts, to compare terms and their meanings and explanatory achievements to such alienation and anomie as the sketch to some problem could be investigated or explained by various theoretical frameworks. Both written exam consists of reproductions of some elementary explanations of the phenomenon, comparing some elementary concepts and explanations from different theoretical perspectives, concepts and application of theory to some simple explanation of the phenomenon.

 

Besides, in the course, we use lectures and seminars based on the students’ active reading and analysis of the literature. The seminars elaborate the topics covered in the lectures and are based on students’ essays whose drafts are discussed in the seminar. In addition to active participation in the lectures and in the seminars, the student is requested to write an essay that will present a sociological analysis of one topic dealt in the classes.

Consultations schedule:

• prof. dr. sc. Siniša Zrinščak:

  Tuesdays 11-12 pm

  Location: Trg Republike Hrvatske 3, room 16
• izv. prof. dr. sc. Dario Čepo:

  Tuesday 11 am - 12 pm

  Location: Trg Republike Hrvatske 3, room 25/II.