B6990 - GENDER AND SOCIOLOGY

Learning outcomes

CLASSES WILL BE HELD AT THE FORLì CAMPUS.

 

The course introduces theoretical concepts and methodological approaches useful for analyzing gender representations and the media and cultural construction of the identity/otherness dialectic.

By the end of the course, students will be able to:

- understand the relationship between gender, media and society;
- analyze the role of media in the construction of gender identities;
- recognize how gender(ed) representations influence cultural and social perceptions;
- apply a critical perspective to analyze media content, identifying gender stereotypes and inequalities.

 

Course contents

The course will be divided into two parts.
The first part will introduce the main sociological perspectives and explore the key concepts of gender studies.
Adopting the theoretical and methodological approaches of the sociology of cultural and communicative processes, the relations between gender, media and society will then be explored along two main directions: production, circulation and reception of media narratives (focus on media content and its negotiation by different audiences) and usage practices (focus on the use of digital technologies), from a gender perspective.
In the second part of the course, pathways will be offered related to the role of media and digital technologies in the construction and negotiation of gender identities around case studies concerning health, migration, and climate change.

Readings/Bibliography

During the course of the lectures, and in preparation for the final exam, students will be offered a reading pathway that is partly common and partly the student's choice.

Only for attending students, the teacher will make all suggested readings available in a handout.

Non-attending students are invited to study the following bibliography:

1) Sassatelli R., Ghigi R. (2024), Body and Gender, Polity.
2) Krijnen T., Van Bauwel S. (2022), Gender and Media: Representing, Producing, Consuming, Routledge.
3) Wharton A. (2005), The Sociology of Gender (only the Introduction), Blackwell.
4) Haraway D. (1988), Situated Knowledges: The Science Question in Feminism and the Privilege of Partial Perspective, in «Feminist Studies», Vol. 14, No. 3, pp. 575-599.

Teaching methods

Teaching is conducted through lectures, flipped classroom activities and seminar activities.

The course favors an approach based on active learning: students are required to participate in classroom discussion, case studies analysis, and cooperative group work.

The professor will make use of multimedia tools in order to provide more stimuli for learning.

Assessment methods

Oral exam on the readings indicated in the bibliography.

The exam is aimed at assessing: knowledge and understanding of the readings, and the ability to synthesize them; the ability to offer a critical interpretation of the concepts and perspectives proposed in the bibliography of the exam; the ability to apply or connect these concepts to existing or original case studies.

Grading will vary from excellent (30 and L) to very good (30) to good (29-27) to fair (26-24) to more than sufficient (23-21) to sufficient (21-18) or insufficient, based on the student's ability to be able to articulate knowledge accurately, comprehensively and reflectively/critically or in a confused, incomplete and approximate manner.

Teaching tools

All digital tools used to support teaching will be linked or made available on the course Virtual platform:

http://virtuale.unibo.it

Office hours

See the website of Valentina Cappi