ASOA16298U Sociology of Globalisation: From international migration to the global diffusion of ideas and policies

Volume 2024/2025
Education

BA and MA elective course

Course package:

Welfare, inequality and mobility 

Knowledge, organisation and policy

Culture, lifestyle and everyday life

Content

This elective course, designed for both undergraduate and master's students, delves into the intricate ways in which processes of globalization shape our daily lives. While the influence of the local and national remains significant, our interactions are increasingly impacted by global dynamics. The course explores the intersections of the global, national, and local spheres, with a specific focus on three key areas:

Mobility Across Borders:

  • Examining various forms and outcomes of migration.
  • Analyzing the impact of migration on societies and individuals.

 

Global Education Systems:

  • Exploring how internationalization is transforming educational systems around the world.
  • Analyzing the interaction between local and national education priorities, and how they intersect with the international mobility of people and ideas, exploring the resulting consequences for inequalities.

 

Policy Dynamics:

  • Exploring the adoption and adaptation of policies related to migration and education at international, national and local levels.

 

The course introduces students to theories and concepts that capture the ways in which globalization processes both reproduce but also disrupt existing inequalities. Through close readings and discussions, students will gain insights into the complexities of migration, education, and policy studies within the global context. The course engages with published empirical research and incorporates perspectives from practitioners in the field, providing students with a comprehensive understanding of how the intersections between the global, national, and local are actively managed and innovated.

Learning Outcome

Knowledge

At the end of the course, the students will be able to:

  • Identify a range of theories or concepts that can help to explain how globalisation structures everyday lives and societies;
  • Articulate key theories that explain migration and the experiences of individuals moving across borders;
  • Examine the diverse ways in which education provision and knowledge are internationalised, and discerning the consequences of this; 
  • Analyse how global governance systems influence the possibilities for mobility of people, ideas and policies.

 

Skills

  • At the end of the course, the students will be able to:

  • Describe the reasons and mechanisms behind the intersection of the global with the national and local;
  • Identify various organisations and professional roles actively engaged in the intersecting space of the global, national and local around migration and around education;
  • Engage confidently in debates on key issues related to migration and education.

 

Competencies

  • Upon completion of the course, students will be able to:

  • Discuss issues of migration, education and policy mobility in transnational, national and local spaces;
  • Apply relevant theories or concepts in their discussions, drawing on published empirical research and insights from ‘the field’.

Key readings will be journal articles and books chapters - made available on Absalon.

Some background in sociology would be an advantage.
Lectures, external speakers/inputs, small group discussions, student presentations.
  • Category
  • Hours
  • Class Instruction
  • 49
  • Total
  • 49
Peer feedback (Students give each other feedback)

Students will comment on each other’s inputs during sessions.

Credit
7,5 ECTS
Type of assessment
Written assignment
Marking scale
7-point grading scale
Censorship form
No external censorship
Re-exam

Individual/group.

Free written take-home essays are assignments for which students define and formulate a problem within the parameters of the course and based on an individual exam syllabus. The free written take-home essay must be no longer than 10 pages. For group assignments, an extra 5 pages is added per additional student. Further details for this exam form can be found in the Curriculum and in the General Guide to Examinations at KUnet.

Criteria for exam assesment

Criteria for exam assessment:

Grade 12 is given for an outstanding performance: the student lives up to the course's goal description in an independent and convincing manner with no or few and minor shortcomings

Grade 7 is given for a good performance: the student is confidently able to live up to the goal description, albeit with several shortcomings

Grade 02 is given for an adequate performance: the minimum acceptable performance in which the student is only able to live up to the goal description in an insecure and incomplete manner