96315 - Inequality and Marginality

Learning outcomes

The course aims to examine and explore the processes of marginalisation and the reproduction of social inequalities. By the end of the course, students will have acquired the theoretical and empirical knowledge (through case studies and practical examples) needed to understand and analyse, including from a critical perspective, the processes through which inequalities are produced and reproduced across different areas of social life (labour market, social policies, social and political participation, and education).

Course contents

The course begins by approaching poverty as a structural feature of the capitalist system (Morlicchio, 2019; Saraceno, Benassi and Morlicchio, 2022) and traces the emergence of a new social question in which insecurity becomes an ordinary condition rather than an exception. This insecurity cuts across different areas of everyday life and disrupts the continuity of individual biographies. Against this background, the course examines how contingent events, often recurrent and prolonged (economic, health and environmental crises), contribute to the deterioration of the material and symbolic conditions of populations and territories. At the political level, the course reconstructs the shift in public discourse on marginality since the 1990s, when the rise of the neoliberal paradigm was accompanied by the retreat of the state from social policy and by the transfer of responsibility to individuals, both in the sphere of work and in matters of control and security. The effects of this shift have been concentrated among the most vulnerable populations (Wacquant, 2012, 2014). The course brings together transformations in the labour market, welfare regimes and territorial dynamics, showing how the degradation of work, the withdrawal of public services and the criminalisation of survival economies are different facets of the same process.

The course is organised into five modules:

Module 1. The new social question and emerging risk profiles. Insecurity as a structural condition: the precarisation of work, the weakening of family ties, housing difficulties and social isolation. Key concepts (poverty, marginality, exclusion and inequality) and the distinction between exclusion from employment and marginality within employment, including the working poor, precarious employment and in-work poverty.

Module 2. The contemporary debate and the Italian model of poverty. The main coordinates of the debate, the actors involved, the economic and institutional mechanisms that generate impoverishment, and policies designed to address it. The analysis of policy measures provides an opportunity to examine the relationship between public responsibility and individual responsibilisation, and to reconsider class fragmentation, ethnic divisions and the transformation of the state from social protection to workfare.

Module 3. Marginality from a spatial perspective. The marginality of people and the marginality of places: ghettos, urban peripheries and disadvantaged neighbourhoods, as well as inner areas, demographic decline and the withdrawal of public services. Social infrastructure and the foundational economy are used as analytical frameworks for understanding the resources and institutions that either sustain or abandon a territory.

Module 4. Thematic explorations based on case studies and empirical research. Topics include young people not in employment, education or training (NEETs) in Italy and Europe, sex work between its construction as a social problem and claims to self-determination, and care work and migrant care workers, examined in relation to processes of undervaluation and global care chains. Each topic is connected to broader processes of control and criminalisation. Additional themes may be introduced following discussion with students.

Module 5. Pathways out of marginality: individual agency, collective resilience and public policy. Case studies of social interventions and innovations, with particular attention to cooperative models, the commons and the foundational economy as collective repertoires for responding to marginality.

By the end of the course, students will have acquired a general understanding of exclusion and marginality, the main theoretical approaches used to interpret them, and the conceptual tools developed by sociology for their study. The course does not confine itself to the criminological tradition, but also engages with more recent perspectives, ranging from Wacquant’s work to approaches that explore the connections between marginality, work and territory.

Readings/Bibliography

The bibliography may change before or shortly after the course begins.

• Alberio M. (2014). Growing up and living in a poor neighbourhood: A comparative perspective on the neighbourhood effects in Paris and Milan. Sociologia Urbana e Rurale, 103, 74-98. Doi: 10.3280/SUR2014-103005
  
  
• Decembrotto L. (2020). Detenzione e uscita dal carcere. L’accompagnamento socio-educativo per l’inclusione comunitaria. L’integrazione scolastica e sociale, 19(2), 19-27. Doi: 10.14605/ISS1922003
  
  
• Giancola O., Salmieri L. (2020). Sociologia delle diseguaglianze. Teorie, metodi, ambiti. Roma: Carocci Editore @ Studi Superiori.
  
  
• Morlicchio E. (2019). La povertà. Eredità del passato, certezza del presente, incognita del futuro. Milano: Feltrinelli.
  
  
• Saraceno C., Benassi D., Morlicchio E. (2022). La povertà in Italia: soggetti, meccanismi, politiche. Bologna: Il Mulino.
  
  
• Wacquant L. (2016). I reietti della città. Ghetto, periferia, stato, a cura di, Paone S., Petrillo A. Pisa: Edizioni ETS. Mandatory chapters: introduction and prologue (up to p. 67); part three (pp. 255–314).

Teaching methods

Although the classes will follow a traditional lecture format, student participation remains essential. Students will be encouraged to ask questions for clarification and to contribute relevant examples and comments that may support both individual and collective learning.

Discussion and debate must always take place in an atmosphere of the utmost respect for everyone involved, including students, the lecturer and external guests.

Presentations of group projects by attending students will take place during the course and will form an integral part of it. This pedagogical choice reflects the idea that learning does not occur solely through a vertical process, from lecturer to students, but also horizontally, through interaction and exchange among students themselves.

Assessment methods

Attending students:
Theoretical mid-term assessment (approximately 40% of the final grade); group project (approximately 50%); oral presentation (the remaining 10%).
The mid-term assessment, lasting 90 minutes, consists of three sections: a closed-ended knowledge test with 6–8 items, including multiple-choice questions and justified true/false statements (worth approximately one quarter of the mid-term grade); a short open-ended question requiring students to define and relate two concepts, to be answered in approximately half a page (worth around one third of the mid-term grade); a longer argumentative question based on a prompt, such as a quotation, a statistical figure or a press excerpt, to be answered in one to two pages (worth approximately 45% of the mid-term grade).

Non-attending students:
The individual final project accounts for 40% of the final grade, while its oral presentation accounts for 10%. On the same day as the presentation and discussion of the final paper, students will also be examined on the theoretical component of the course, which accounts for the remaining 50% of the grade.



The final project
Students will select a topic from a list proposed by the lecturer. The project will be developed over time through four stages reflecting the structure and progression of the course:

• Definition of the selected social problem: what the problem consists of, whom it affects, why it constitutes a social problem, and the formulation of a clear research question.
  
  
• Analysis through the scientific literature: a critical and structured literature review framing the problem through the concepts introduced in the course and drawing on relevant empirical sources.
  
  
• Optional fieldwork component: although not compulsory, this component will be positively valued. It may consist of one or two interviews or testimonies from experts or key informants, such as a practitioner, public official or third-sector representative, or alternatively a mapping of the actors and services involved in addressing the selected problem.
  
  
• Development of a potentially innovative social intervention: the proposal should identify its target group, the actors and resources involved, its theory of change, and the foreseeable obstacles to its implementation.

Final output: a written paper of approximately 3.000-4.000 words. Attending students will present their work in class during the final two sessions of the course. Non-attending students will discuss their project as part of the oral examination.



Notice for students with Specific Learning Disorders (SLD) or temporary/permanent disabilities: Students are strongly encouraged to contact the University Office in charge (Service for Students with Disabilities and SLD) well in advance. The office will be responsible for proposing any necessary accommodations, which must be submitted to the instructor for approval at least 15 days in advance. The instructor will evaluate the appropriateness of such accommodations in light of the course’s learning objectives.



Notice on the use of Artificial Intelligence (AI): AI may be used as a helpful tool to support individual study through further exploration, summaries, and self-assessment activities. With regard to the preparation of the final paper, limited, disclosed, and non-substantive use of AI is permitted for support activities, such as summarising and rephrasing. Substantive use of AI to complete any part of the assessment is not permitted. For the midterm assessment (written examination), the in-class group presentation, and the oral examination required for students who do not attend classes, the use of AI is prohibited, as these assessments are conducted in person. Any use of AI in these assessments constitutes a breach of academic integrity.

Teaching tools

Required and optional readings.

Course PowerPoint presentations (PPT).

Office hours

See the website of Marco Alberio