Children, Families and Society

Code: SOC15005L

3 ECTS

Duration: 15 weeks/78 hours

Scientific Area: Sociology

Teaching languages: Portuguese

Languages of tutoring support: Portuguese

Regime de Frequência: Presencial

Sustainable Development Goals

Educação de qualidade - Assegurar a educação inclusiva, e equitativa e de qualidade, e promover oportunidades de aprendizagem ao longo da vida para todos.

Learning Goals

The main objective of the course is to provide the foundations of the sociological perspective on children and families to encourage and develop problematization skills, analytical, critical, and reflective reasoning on related topics and promote attitudes of openness to cultural relativism that enable a collaborative and creative in plural contexts of multidisciplinary research and intervention. At the end of the semester, students should be able to: a) identify and contextualize the main factors that attest to cultural relativism around children and families; b) theoretically and methodologically substantiate the specificity of the sociological approach to children and families; c) critically discuss the main axes that shape childhood contexts and cultures; d) problematize the main themes that animate the sociological debate surrounding the place of children in the family and in contemporary society.

I The social construction of the child and the family
1.1 Concepts, images, and contexts
1.2 Knowledge and discourses about children, childhood, and families

II The sociological perspective on children and families
2.1 From the traditional family to the modern and post-modern family
2.2 Discovering children and valuing childhood
2.3 Methodological challenges: conditions, procedures, and ethics in research

III Childhood contexts and cultures
4.1 (Un)defined borders: education, economy, and politics
4.2 Families and children without borders: migration, asylum, and cross-cultural mobility
4.3 Security, risk, protection, and institutionalization
4.4 Technology and digitalization of childhood
4.5 Knowledge, rights, and modes of participation
4.6 Imaginaries and consumption

IV Children and families: themes and debates

Teaching Methods

The teaching and learning methodologies are adjusted to the specificity of the UC and aligned with the Institutional Pedagogical Policy defined at the University. Through theoretical-practical classes that insist on the double perspective of exhibition and illustration accompanied by student participation, teaching centered on student learning is valued; the development of disciplinary and transversal skills; the articulation of teaching and research; the use of digital resources as tools to promote learning; the use of digital resources as communication management and flexibility tools; self-regulatory assessment practices for student learning; the internationalization of training experiences and the multiplatform relationship with the community.

Assessment

According to internal regulation, students may choose between a continuous assessment process or a final examination. The final classification (FC) of the course is calculated as follows:
FC Continuous assessment: 1 written test (50%) and a written essay with oral presentation and discussion (50%).
FC Final examination: 1 written test (80%) and a written essay with oral presentation and discussion (20%)