Political Sciences and International Security

The course aims at introducing students to the knowledge of citizenship as social, cultural, political and institutional phenomenon. Citizenship has been of crucial importance in the building of democratic societies; but nowadays it is living deep changes. These changes have given place to unexpected developments, with uncertain results. In any case, they have definitely modified the citizenship device, which remains, however, an essential point of reference for the building and development of democratic societies. Specific objectives of the course are the following: - To offer students a systematic knowledge of democratic citizenship as an inclusion, cohesion and development device of modern and contemporary societies, with reference to the results of scientific research started in the '90s; - To enable students to employ an empirical approach to observe and analyze social, cultural, political and institutional dynamics involving democratic citizenship; - To favor the students' abilities to evaluate situations and processes, as well as to build scenarios on the future of democratic citizenship, through case studies, dialogue with experts, discussion on controversial topics, exercises. Dublin Descriptors 1. Knowledge and understanding: through the lessons, students will gain appropriate knowledge to understand the phenomenon of democratic citizenship through the conceptual structure that will be provided. 2. Applying knowledge and understanding: the mix of theoretical topics and analysis of materials and cases will enable students to develop a proper operational ability, so that they will learn to use concepts and theories at the end of gather information on citizenship and its transformations. 3. Making judgements: the analysis of the ongoing transformations in democratic citizenship will enable students to enhance their attitude to deliver autonomous judgements, also thanks to individual exercises and working groups. 4. Communication: through class discussion of themes and issues dealt with in the lessons, and through individual or group presentations, students will improve their communication abilities. 5. Learning skills: students will be stimulated to refine learning techniques and methods through the interaction with the teacher as well as with researchers, experts, and people engaged in public policies during ad hoc meetings. In the final evaluation students will have to prove that have proper knowledge and abilities, so that they could produce information on the citizenship phenomenon and elaborate critical reflections and operational strategies to be used in a professional environment.