In this seminar we will read Thomas Schelling´s "Micromotives and Macrobehavior", which could easily be listed among the hundered most important books on theory in the social sciences of the last fifty years. In this book Schelling tackles the difficulties of how to infere mircromotives from macro patterns. What for example might drive processes of racial segregation in urban areas? Schelling here shows that we can have segregation even without people having racist attitudes. Likewise he also deals extensively with the unintended or even unknown consequences of social action, perhaps the main concern of sociology in general. In retrospect and according to current fashion in sociaology one might say that Schelling helped establish a mechanism based approach.
Thomas Schelling, Micromotives and Macrobehavior, Norton 1978.
(embarrassingly the book seems not to be available in our library, yet. Therefore I sacanned it and uploaded it in the Lernraum)
Rhythmus | Tag | Uhrzeit | Format / Ort | Zeitraum |
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Studiengang/-angebot | Gültigkeit | Variante | Untergliederung | Status | Sem. | LP | |
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Bielefeld Graduate School In History And Sociology / Promotion | Theory and Methods Classes | 0.5 | Theory Class | ||||
Soziologie / Promotion |
You should have read the book by the end of the term and should be able to explain some of its models to others or apply them in your own research.
I guess the best way to proceed might be having regular meetings either via zoom or, as we are not too many, meeting in person in one of our larger classrooms (should this not be illegal). For meetings via zoom you should get an invitation before each class.
Apart from our first meeting, which will be some general introduction and will possibly be short, we should proceed chapter by chapter: summarizing each chapter´s content in class and discussing problems of understanding, interpreation and application.