507973 - SOCIOLOGY OF DEVELOPMENT

The world economy has grown at an unprecedented pace in the last half-a-century pushed and sustained by the diffusion and strengthening of socio-economic forces such as entrepreneurship and innovation, human capital formation and mobility, science and technology. The course aims at offering a sociological view on these “engines of development” looking at relevant institutions, cultural elements and social relations associated with them, providing students with references to different theoretical approaches and empirical evidence.
At the end of the course students should have a general understanding of economic development in the long run and in recent times and gain a more specific knowledge of some constituent elements of the “engines of development” such as entrepreneurship & innovation, science & technology. They also should be able to search for empirical evidence describing these elements and to distinguish different theoretical approaches to the study of development. Finally, students should acquire theoretical and practical tools to study local development and be able to detect relevant aspects connected to economic development in their immediate social context (e.g. city, region).