87648 - Welfare and Social Innovation

Course contents

The course is organized in lectures and seminars, as detailed in the following program. Lectures (16 hours in remote on MS TEAMS) aim to introduce students to the core tenets of the discipline. Seminars (12 hours) aim to provide occasions for in-depth discussions of class materials and exercises. For the seminar section of the course, students will be divided in two groups according to their preferences and according to rules concerning the current pandemic emergency: one group will do the seminar in classroom (12 hours) and another group will do the seminar remotely on MS TEAMS (12 hours), for a total of 28 hours for each student. Students are required to carefully read the assigned material before the session and - in the case of seminars - active participation through presentations of existing scholarship and case studies will also be expected. Regardless of the health-related conditions and the specific organization of the course, students will be able to follow the lessons of the entire course remotely on MS TEAMS.

The first and second part of the course will consist of 16 hours of frontal lessons (8 meetings) where the two examination texts will be presented.

The first part of the course will present a theory and methodology of analysis of society, the so called Sistem's Theory, which will enable the student to understand the contemporary social world, its processes and structures. In particular we will elaborate on the structural contradiction occuring between the necessary self-reproduction of social systems and the need of social sustainability.

In the second part of the course we will present and discuss examples of innovation emerging from the "hybridization" of different languages and from the creative misunderstanding between cooperating actors. The aim is to enable the student to develop a complex vision of the processes leading, often unintentionally, towards innovation paths.

The third part of the course, which consists of 6 lectures, will be organized through analysis of case studies - taken from David Stark's book - that students will have to analyze. In the first half hour of each seminar, a document or part of the book will be presented and in the remaining time the student will have to produce an analysis. The papers resulting from these tests will be sent to Professor Prandini and evaluated.

Readings/Bibliography

- Niels Akerstroem Andersen e Justine Grønbæk Pors, Il welfare delle potenzialità, Mimesis, Milano-Udine, 2016.

- Stark, D., Il senso della dissonanza, Mimesis, Milano-Udine, 2019.

Teaching methods

The course is organized in lectures and seminars, as detailed in the following program. Lectures (16 hours in remote on MS TEAMS) aim to introduce students to the core tenets of the discipline. Seminars (12 hours) aim to provide occasions for in-depth discussions of class materials and exercises. For the seminar section of the course, students will be divided in two groups according to their preferences and according to rules concerning the current pandemic emergency: one group will do the seminar in classroom (12 hours) and another group will do the seminar remotely on MS TEAMS (12 hours), for a total of 28 hours for each student. Students are required to carefully read the assigned material before the session and - in the case of seminars - active participation through presentations of existing scholarship and case studies will also be expected. Regardless of the health-related conditions and the specific organization of the course, students will be able to follow the lessons of the entire course remotely on MS TEAMS.

Assessment methods

Verification of learning occurs through:

A) For attending students

1. - Intermediate written examination concerning the book:

Niels Akestroem Andresen and Justine Grønbæk Pors, The welfare of potential.

2. Evaluation of the written analyses that each student will carry out during the 12 seminar hours and that will have as their theme the contents of David Stark's book.

(B) FOR NON attending students

Written examination.

Office hours

See the website of Riccardo Prandini