95858 - Practices of Social Involvement and Citizen Participation

Learning outcomes

Once completed the course, the student is able to set up and manage participatory planning methods of interventions, extending the application to a wider audience of subjects involved in the implementation and future use, also adopting public/private partnership formulas.

Course contents

The course aims to offer knowledge aimed at critically analyzing the relationship between space and social organization, exploring the transformations of the urban fabric on different scales and the processes of inclusion/exclusion of urban actors.

Through the course activities, students will: 1) develop theoretical skills to read and analyze from a sociological perspective the territory at different scales, in a perspective of sustainable territorial planning; (b) experiment with methodologies and techniques of empirical research and creation of participatory/involvement processes.

The course has three parts:
1) Theoretical part dedicated to the themes:
- Sociology and architecture: concepts and perspectives of dialogue
- Urban transformations, social impacts and the environment: what sustainability?
- Urban government and inclusion-exclusion processes

The course will host tematic seminars by scholars and experts which, through the presentation of research experiences and case studies, will support the in-depth study of various key concepts of the course.

2) Methodological part devoted to an in-depth study of:
- Methods and techniques of social research and urban foresight

3) Application part focused on the realization of:
- an empirical research conducted during the course and experienced by the working groups

Readings/Bibliography

Exam readings for attending students:

- Presentation slide uses a lesson
- Wood, A. (June 30, 2017). The elephant is the room: sociology and architecture [Online]. The journal Sociological Review. https://thesociologicalreview.org/collections/urban-sociologies/the-elephant-is-the-room-sociology-and-architecture/
- Cucca, R. and Friesenecker, M. (2022). Potential and limits of innovative housing solutions in degrowth planning: the case of Vienna. Local Environment, 27(4), 502-516.
- Smith, D. (2005). ‘Studentification’: the gentrification factory? In R. Atkinson and G. Bridge (eds), Gentrification in a Global Context: The New Urban Colonialism (pp. 72-89). (Housing and Society Series). Routledge.
- Sage, J., Smith, D. and Hubbard, P. (2013). Newly built studentification: a panacea for balanced communities? Urban Studies, 50(13), 2623-2641.
- Kenna, Therese, and Ailish Murphy (2021) «Building Exclusive Student Communities: The Rise of “Higher” Student Housing and New Geographies of Exclusion». The Geographical Journal 187(2), 138–54.


For not attending students, in addition:
- Klinenberg E. (2002), Heatwave: A Social Autopsy of Disaster in Chicago, Chicago, The University of Chicago Press.

Teaching methods

The course includes lectures, thematic seminars, moments of collective discussion

Assessment methods

Attending students: those who have attended at least 70% of the in-person lessons.

For attending students, the exam can take place in three alternative ways:

Option 1

Group workshop, within the framework of the PSICP course: the team develops research work agreed and constructed with the instructor, linked to the theme and area of the design studio.

In this mode, the examination involves:

• a presentation to the class (20 minutes for each group during the final lessons of the Practices of social involvement and citizen participation module) +
• a final paper (20,000 characters, spaces and bibliography included)

The paper must be delivered to the instructor via email at least ten days before the official exam session. Again via email, the instructor will propose the final grade to the group and, if accepted, will proceed with the minutes on the official date without the need for the students to physically present themselves for the exam.The final grade consists of the evaluation of the presentation to the class (30%) and the quality of the paper (70%).

Option 2

Individual paper (minimum 20,000 characters, spaces and bibliography included) on a topic related to the contents of the course and agreed with the teacher

Option 3

Oral exam on the entire course bibliography


For not-attending students, the exam can take place in two alternative ways:

Option 1

Individual paper (minimum 30,000 characters, spaces and bibliography included) on a topic related to the contents of the course and agreed with the teacher

The paper must be delivered to the teacher via email at least ten days before the official exam session. Again via email, the teacher will propose the final grade and, if accepted, will proceed with the minutes on the official date without the need for the students to physically present themselves for the exam.

Option 2

Oral exam on the entire course bibliography

 

Teaching tools

slides and other materials available on Virtuale.unibo

Office hours

See the website of Alessandra Landi