04487 - Sociology of Work

Learning outcomes

The course intends to focus on the phenomenon of work and its aspects of social organization. The aim is to examine the characteristics of the work market, the most important productive sectors, the employment system, the emerging risk profiles more widespread within the post-industrial society and its "fragmented" regulation. At the end of the course the student is able to master the sociological vocabulary on labor and to take possession of the key themes that are at the heart of course. The student will get knowledge about the relationship between work and flexibilization of the labor market, including changes in the labor market and new welfare policies.

Course contents

The course aims at developing for the student the acquisition of an interpretative perspective on the key-theme of labour and its most recent transformations and social problematics. This objective will be especially pursued through the presentation to students of the fundamental achievements, both theoretical and methodological, both classical and contemporary, gained by sociology of labour as a discipline, without disdaining different arguments developed by “tangential” areas of study. The students will be introduced to the theoretical and methodological coordinates which constitute the ground and, then, the historical development of the discipline. Subsequently, the analysis will be centered around some specific problems recently emerged within the borders of sociology of labour. With regard to the didactic methodology, the lectures led by the instructor will be accompanied by other activities such as screenings and seminars could be led by experts and/or professors from other universities.

Through the assumption of the whole European tradition of sociology of labour (particularly the Italian), the course poses at the core of its thematic articulations the concept of “labour”, conceived in all its different dimensions. These latter tend currently to assume unprecedented modalities in the context of what is largely defined as  Post-Industrial  or  Post-Fordist Society and, consequently, the course aims at closely understanding also the qualitative side of these social and economic emergencies. Particularly, since societies face the spectre of an economic development always more critical and automatically paired with an increasing rate of unemployment, it has become even more relevant to fully comprehend both the objective and subjective transformations of labour and the unpredictable and competitive ways through which this latter is nowadays organized to produce value.

The theories belonging to the American, socio-industrial tradition and to the European, “socio-labourist” one will be analyzed and compared with the so-called “Japanese model” and with the more recent Post-Fordist organizational theories, and also with the so-called “networking”. This comparison is fundamental in order to better understand the logics of development, the cultures and techniques which are at the core of these new forms of production. By doing so, the attention will be drawn to the most significant elements of the deep shift which the subjective experience of labour is currently undergoing.

As already partially sketched out, the course is subdivided in three moments strongly connected amongst each other and substantially interdependent.

A first propaedeutic section, aims at providing some basic theoretical elements which represent the background of the institutional and monographic analysis posed at the core of the course. This part will assume a retrospective, historic-conceptual gaze whose specific objective is to analyze the pivotal notions variously related to the theme “labour”. These conceptual elements clearly play a fundamental role regarding the European consciousness of the first industrialization and also concerning the complete affirmation of the Weberian “spirit of capitalism”. Furthermore, these aspects are extremely relevant since they will subsequently express to a large extent the culture of the Twentieth century, which has been convincingly labeled as “labour society”. In this framework, the analysis will especially focus on the categories and masterful reflections which the fathers of sociological thought elaborated to describe and explain, starting from a determined economic, organizational and social reality of labour (closely linked with the “factory-system”), that deep rupture in human history which is called, today, “modernity”.

A second section is finally aimed at analyzing the contemporary capitalistic society through an interdisciplinary conceptualization which is possibly able to interpret the extraordinary transformations of the world of production. The common analytical perspective, within which the various aspect of the issue will be integrated, is represented by the crisis of the so-called “wage society” and of its typical regime of accumulation, the Fordist one (this crisis, it will be argued, is clearly exemplified by the current global economic meltdown). As a coherent consequence, it will be attempted a description/explanation of the not-yet-permanently-structured texture of that productive model which is conventionally defined as “Post-Fordist”. This model, whose precise borders are still to be established, expresses and defines new and unprecedented social configurations of labour and of the specific productive systems within which it is operationalized. Lastly will be central the questions concerning the condition of job insecurity.

A third section intends to offer a comprehensive knowledge framework of the labor changes in contemporary society, starting, on one side, from the question of "pervasive precarisation" of labor and the progressive crisis of traditional welfare systems, and, on the other, from the subjectivity changes in the context of the deeply renewed productive and social instances of contemporary capitalism. Finally, the general coordinates of a new economic and social profile called "Society of Performance" will be introduced.

Readings/Bibliography

 

I part:

La Rosa M. - Rizza R. - Zurla P., Lavoro e società industriale, Franco Angeli, Milano, 2006 (Nuova edizione integrata)

II part:

Castel R.,Incertezze crescenti. Lavoro, cittadinanza, individuo, Editrice Socialmente, Bologna, 2015.

Nicoli M., Le risorse umane, Ediesse, Roma, 2015 (solamente il capitolo terzo e quarto pp. 93-199).

III part:

Chicchi F., Simone A., La società della prestazione, Ediesse, Roma, 2017.

The program of study for  attending students will have some changes that will be communicated during the course by the teacher.  

 

Teaching methods

The different sections of the course will be centered around lectures led by the instructors. Moreover, a seminar activity with experts and relevant scholar and several screenings could be planned.

At the methodological level, it is important to underline the pivotal role that will be played by paradigms and interpretative frameworks. Those tools are necessary to comprehend both problems and their analytical contents. Otherwise put, the students will be provided with transversal and methodological competencies for the understanding of sociology of labour. The goal, to conclude, is to build up with them an adequate tool-box.

Assessment methods

To evaluate the degree of students knowledge, for this teaching, the exam will be in written form. 

Only for attending students two written partial tests are been scheduled. 

Criteria for the assessment of learning : mastery of the terminology-defining complex of the sociology of work, ability to describe and explain phenomena, institutional processes, micro and macro dynamics studied by sociology of work, ability to return the theoretical and conceptual contribution of the classics and to argue about, even comparatively, an author and the other, ability to face a sociological reflection on aspects and processes of transformation of society and the economy in contemporary scenarios of globalization.

Teaching tools

Sudents will find information and subsidiary didactic material on the web-space of the instructors.

Links to further information

https://campus.unibo.it/

Office hours

See the website of Federico Chicchi