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Students are able to name the most important theoretical models of contemporary society and to explain structures and changes within different society models. They recognize the possi-bilities and limits opened by socio-theoretical models, and they understand the dependence of society models on their respective social context of origin.

What kind of society do we live in? What are the structures that characterize our contemporary society, and what are the changes it is undergoing presently? What can be considered typical for the contemporary society – for example regarding discourses on risk and environmental hazards, the changing relation between work and leisure or the increasing importance of science and technology?

The lecture will provide an overview over main theoretical models of contemporary society, which explicitly claim to deliver a diagnosis of our times. Depicting these competing descriptions of the present (from the risk or experience society to the security or control society to the knowledge society) shows their considerable orientation capacities, on the one hand. On the other, it sensitizes for the selectivities any sociological analysis of society is subject to.

Lectures and discussions

Multiple Choice Test

Bogner, Alexander (2012): Gesellschaftsdiagnosen. Ein Überblick. Weinheim und Basel: Beltz Juventa.

Kneer, Georg/Nassehi, Armin/Schroer, Markus (Hg. 2001): Soziologische Gesellschaftsbegriffe. Konzepte moderner Zeitdiagnosen. München: Fink (UTB).

Schimank, Uwe/Volkmann, Ute (Hg. 2007): Soziologische Gegenwartsdiagnosen I. Eine Bestandsaufnahme. Wiesbaden: VS.

positive completion of the compulsory module according to § 5 Para 1 No 2