Sociology: The Core Concepts Trilogy

Many of you will be familiar with the Cornetto Trilogy of films, the brilliant Shaun of the Dead, the equally-funny Hot Fuzz and that third one they brought-out because of some contract obligation.

Allegedly.

I could be wrong.

Anyways, far be it for me to compare this trilogy with that trilogy. There simply is no comparison so I’m not really sure why I mentioned it in the first place.

So. While the Cornetto Trilogy can be used to have a Fun Night In (again, not guaranteed) on a wet Friday night, these three films dating from around 2007 can be used to introduce students to three building blocks of contemporary Sociology.

Guarenteed.

The first looks at the concept of culture and covers ideas like:

• Formal and informal rules
• Norms
• Values
• Culture
• Cultural diversity
• Social construction
• Cultural change
• Globalisation
• Global culture
• Cultural homogeneity

The second introduces the concept of socialisation and covers areas like:

• Feral children
• Genie
• Primary socialisation
• Socialising agencies
• Secondary socialisation
• Social scripts:
• Gender socialisation

The third introduces students to various aspects of the concept of identity:

• Personal and social identities
• National identity
• Ethnic identity
• Roles
• Identity socialisation
• Goffman
• Identity experimentation
• Identity management
• Multiple identities
• Identity and social relationships
• Cooley: Looking-glass self
• Identity confirmation