Understanding Society

This subject introduces big ideas in sociology that help to explain the key changes and challenges facing contemporary societies. You will be encouraged to develop what C Wright-Mills describes as a 'sociological imagination'. This framework focuses on how our identities and life trajectories are shaped by social institutions and historical changes. Society in the 21st century is being reshaped by new movements of people, cultures and finance across the world and the rise of new technologies, new identity categories and new political struggles over issues like climate change. This context is redefining who we are, how we work, how we build intimate relationships, and how we live together. In this context categories such as gender, class and the family are becoming unstable, leading to new and difficult-to-chart experiences and new forms of inequality.