Institutional course: to know, to understand and to be able to analyze the concepts, theories and methods of the Sociology of Science; specialized course: through the theory of Robert Merton and his critics, to become fully aware of the complex relationship between science and society; to understand the major dynamics and problems of the relationship between science and society, and to be able to reason on these matters in an authonoumous manner.

Please note that this course is taught in Italian. It is divided into two: an institutional course, during which are analyzed the major subjects and the principal theoretic approaches in the Sociology of science; and a specialized course, focused on the theme of the relationship between science and society using the theory of Robert Merton and the post-mertonian approaches. in the words of Luciano Gallino, "from a sociological perspective Science is a 'system of social action', specialized in the production and implementation - through methods pretending to be socially legitimatated, thanks to the primacy that they assign to empirical evidence e rational argumentation - of types of knowledge that are certain, that can be trusted and reproducible; moreover, they can foreview, post-view (meaning: 'explain') and manipulate - in a non casual statistical way - some sepcific spatial and temporal sections of the world, that is to say, interwinned sects of events and physical, biological, social or psychological processes". The course will study the diverse social-and-scientific paradigms, form the classical Mertonian paradigm to the Technology Studies, and will focus on the several features of the relationship between science, technological innovation and society.   

With regard to the Sociology of science, students must show: that they know the contents of the discipine at a specialized lever, that they understand its advanced concepts and that they know how to use its patterns of knowledge and concepts, in order to reason in an authonomous manner on the problems inherent to the discipline itself.

The teaching material prepared by the lecturer in addition to recommended textbooks (such as for instance slides, lecture notes, exercises, bibliography) and communications from the lecturer specific to the course can be found inside the Moodle platform › blended.uniurb.it

Course books

Books:

1. Andrea Cerroni & Zenia Simonella, Sociologia della scienza. Capire la scienza per capire la società contemporanea, Carocci, Roma 2014 (pp. 222).

2. Massimiano Bucchi, Scienza e società. Introduzione alla sociologia della scienza, Raffaello Cortina, Milano 2010 (pp. 187).

3. Massimiano Bucchi, Scientisti e antiscientisti. Perché scienza e società non si capiscono, il Mulino, Bologna 2010 (pp. 100).

Audiovisual materials:

1. Imitation game, regia di Morten Tyldum, Cde, 2015 (mm. 110).

2. Einstein. La vita e la scienza, Cinehollywood, 2011 (mm. 70)

Assessment

Oral exam. For the exam, international students are free to choose their preferred language: Italian, English or French.

Disability and Specific Learning Disorders (SLD)

Students who have registered their disability certification or SLD certification with the Inclusion and Right to Study Office can request to use conceptual maps (for keywords) during exams.

To this end, it is necessary to send the maps, two weeks before the exam date, to the course instructor, who will verify their compliance with the university guidelines and may request modifications.