Sociology of Work

By Dr Upasona Sarmah | Dibrugarh University

Learners enrolled: 123

• This course is about Social Dimensions of Work and Workplace, Labour market and the Social forces that allows us or restricts us to enter into it. This course will teach the students the significance of studying work, work life and work place environment and how production relations are related to the social life and identity from sociological perspective. This course will give a detail understanding about the Socio cultural and political background of work life and workplace environment that help us to build our social identity. Thus this course is significant from the point of view of understanding work, work and social identity, work life balance and its overall impact on our social life.

Summary

Course Status :	Upcoming
Course Type :	Core
Language for course content :	English
Duration :	12 weeks
Category :	Sociology
Credit Points :	5
Level :	Undergraduate
Start Date :	06 Jan 2025
End Date :	30 Apr 2025
Enrollment Ends :	28 Feb 2025
Exam Date :	18 May 2025 IST
NCrF Level	5.5
Shift :	I

Note: This exam date is subject to change based on seat availability. You can check final exam date on your hall ticket.

Page Visits

Course layout

1st week:
Module 1: Definition of Work and interlink between Work, Industry and Society.
Module 2: Nature and Types of Industry and its Development.
Module 3: What is Industrial Culture? Industrialisation, Industrialism and Organisation.
Module 4: What is Sociology of Organisational Behaviour: Work ethics and Work culture.

2nd week:
Module 5: Pre industrial Society
Module 6: Industrial Society: Definition, Nature and Types
Module 7: Post Industrial Society
Module 8: Information Society

3rd week:
Module 9: Dimensions of Work: The social Dimension of Work
Module 10: The Sociology of Work Culture: Work satisfaction, Work commitment and expectation
Module 11: Dimensions of Job quality, mechanism and subjective wellbeing
Module 12: Gendered dimensions of Work: Social support system and social agency

4th week:
Module 13: Theories of Work: Marx, Durkheim and Weber Part I
Module 13: Theories of Work: Spencer, Pareto and Parsons Part II
Module 14: Theories of Work: Modern Management, Taylor and Mayo
Module 15: Unpaid work and Forced Labour Part I
Module 15: Subjective well being of unpaid domestic workers Part II
Module 16: Understanding unpaid work of Women: A constraint or a choice?

5th week:
Module 17: Domestic Child Labour: A Sociological Analysis
Module 18: Forced Labour: Slavery, Debt Bondage
Module 19: Sociological perspective of sexual slavery, sex work and exploitation
Module 20: Human trafficking and Laws against human trafficking in India:

6th week:
Module 21: Work in the informal sector: Definition of informal economy from sociological perspective
Module 22: Street Vendors, Home based workers.
Module 23: Child Trafficking: A form of modern slavery
Module 24: Role of governance, Media and Civil society to the organised crime of Human Trafficking

7th week:
Module 25: Globalization and Contemporary Issues of work Part I
Module 25: Globalization and Contemporary Issues of work Part II
Module 26: Introducing Contract Work in the “Knowledge Economy” Part I
Module 26: The Role of Intellectual Capital Part II
Module 27: The Informal labour market in India: Transition due to societal forces.
Module 28: Covid 19 pandemic and its impact on the Informal Sector in India Part I
Module 28: Covid 19 pandemic and its impact on the Informal Sector in India Part II

8th week:
Module 29: External factors affecting Workplace: The social and political dimension.
Module 30: Poverty, Child labour and its implication in Society.
Module 31: National Policy for Women and Child Development.
Module 32: Breaking the rural poverty Cycle: Gender and Rural Employment Policy, problems of Agricultural workers.

9th Week:
Module 33: Definition of Risk, Hazards and Disaster at Workplace
Module 34: Occupational Hazards with special context to Man, Woman and Children.
Module 35: Occupational Hazards in the Health Sector
Module 36: Health and Safety in Workplace

10th week:
Module 38: Work as a Social Dimension of Stress: Role, Status, and Division of labour in Society as a factor of stress at work.
Module 39: Work life balance and Social Policies
Module 40: Coping mechanisms to deal with stress at work

11th Week
Module 41: Disaster in Workplace: Types, Nature, Causes
Module 42: Work Place disaster Preparedness, Response and Management
Module 43: Disaster Risk Reduction Programmes and their Effectiveness
Module 44: Psychosocial risk factors at the workplace

12th Week
Module 45: Risk Factors and its assessment in Workplace
Module46: The Relationship between Work and Mental Health
Module 47: Institutional Discrimination at Workplace
Module 48: Systemic discrimination at workplace Part I
Module 48: Theoretical Perspectives on discrimination at Work Part II

Books and references

1 Grint, Keith. 2005. Classical Approaches to Work: Marx, Durkheim and Weber in The Sociology of Work: An Introduction. Polity Press. Cambridge.

2 Uberoi, J.P.S. 1970. Work, Study and Industrial worker in England in Man, Science and Society. IIAS: Simla.

3. Ramaswamy E. A. and Uma Ramaswamy. 1981, Industry and Labour, New Delhi: Oxford University Press

4. Bell, Daniel. 1976, The Coming of Post-Industrial Society, London: Heineman.

5. Etzioni, A. and P.A. Jargowsky. 1990, ―The false choice between high

technology and basic industry in K. Erikson and P. Vallas (eds.) The Nature of Work: Sociological Perspectives, New Haven and London: Yale University Press,

6. Kumar, Krishan. 1999. From Post-industrial to Post-modern society, Oxford: Blackwell Publishers Ltd.

7. Erikson, Kai. 1990. On Work and Alienation in Erikson, K. and S.P.Vallas (eds) The Nature of Work: Sociological Perspectives. New Haven and

London: American Sociological Association, Presidential Series and Yale University Press.

8. Taylor, Steve. 1998, Emotional Labour and the new Workplace in Thompson and Walhurst (eds.) Workplace of the Future. London: Macmillan.

9. Devine, Fiona. 1992. Gender Segregation in the Engineering and Science Professions: A case of continuity and change in ‘Work, Employment and

Society’.

10. Freeman, Carla. 2009. Femininity and Flexible Labour: Fashioning Class through Gender on the global assembly line in Massimiliano Mollona, Geert De Neve and Jonathan Parry (eds.) Industrial Work and Life: An Anthropological Reader, London: Berg.

11. Edgell, Stephen. 2006, Unpaid Work-Domestic and Voluntary work in The Sociology of Work: Continuity and Change in Unpaid Work. New

Delhi: Sage.

12. Coser, 1990. Forced Labour in Concentration Camps in Erikson, K. and S.P.Vallas (eds.) The Nature of Work: Sociological Perspectives, New Haven and London: American Sociological Association, Presidential Series and Yale

University Press.

13. Breman, Jan. 2003. The Informal Sector‖ in Veena Das, (ed.) The Oxford India Companion to Sociology and Social Anthropology, New Delhi: OUP.

14. Talib, Mohammad. 2010, Writing Labour- Stone Quarry workers in Delhi. New Delhi: OUP.

15. Laughlin, Kim. 1995. Rehabilitating Science, Imagining "Bhopal" in George E. Marcus (ed.) Techno scientific Imaginaries: Conversations, Profiles and Memoirs, Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

16. Zonabend, Francoise. 2009. The Nuclear Everyday in Massimiliano Mollona, Geert De Neve and Jonathan Parry (ed.) Industrial Work and Life: An Anthropological Reader, London: Berg.

17. Bhowmik, Sharit K. (2004). Work in globalizing economy: Reflections on outsourcing in India. Labour, Capital and Society, 37 (1&2).

18. Datta, Puja. Murgai, Rinku, “Evaluating MGNREGA- Does India's Employment Guarantee Scheme guarantee employment?”Economic and Political Weekly, Vol XLVII No 16.

19. Desai, Ashok. (2006). ‘Outsourcing Identities-Call Centres and Cultural Transformation in India’, Economic and Political Weekly, January, Vol 41.

20. Nathan, Dev. George, Ann. (2012). “Corporate Governance and Child Labour”, Economic & Political Weekly, 15 December, Vol XLVII No. 50

Web Links

https://www.jstor.org/stable/2083386

https://www.jstor.org/stable/10.5749/j.ctttt4m1

https://www.jstor.org/stable/2945959

https://www.jstor.org/stable/587277

https://www.jstor.org/stable/4409020

https://www.jstor.org/stable/26655576

https://www.jstor.org/stable/41035395

https://www.jstor.org/stable/26920219

https://www.jstor.org/stable/3992923

https://www.jstor.org/stable/27516500

https://www.epw.in/journal/2012/16/special-articles/does-indias-employment-guarantee-scheme-guarantee-employment.html

https://www.jstor.org/stable/40967765

https://www.jstor.org/stable/42853807

https://www.jstor.org/stable/26394528

https://www.epw.in/journal/2006/03/review-science-policy-review-issues-specials/outsourcing-identities.html

https://www.epw.in/system/files/pdf/2012_47/50/Corporate%20Governance%20and%20child%20labour.pdf

https://www.routledge.com/Industrial-Work-and-Life-An-Anthropological-Reader/Mollona-Neve-Parry/p/book/9781847880741

https://www.jstor.org/stable/23391138

Instructor bio

Dr Upasona Sarmah

Dibrugarh University

Dr. Upasona Sarmah
Associate Professor, Department of Sociology, Dibrugarh University

Teaching Experience: 19 Years

Areas of Interest:

Sociological Theory
Political Sociology
Social Psychology
Gender Studies
Tribal Studies
Sociology of North East India
Industry and Society

Academic Background:
Dr. Upasona Sarmah is an accomplished academic with a rich teaching experience of 19 years in the field of Sociology. She is currently serving as an Associate Professor in the Department of Sociology at Dibrugarh University. Her research and teaching interests encompass a wide range of topics, including Sociological Theory, Political Sociology, Social Psychology, and the Sociology of Gender, with a specific focus on the tribal communities and socio-political dynamics of Northeast India.

Dr. Sarmah has contributed extensively to the academic community and has been actively involved in research, seminars, and workshops aimed at addressing the contemporary social issues in the region.

Course certificate

This course offers dual options to the learners: • The learners, who do not require a credit certificate, will get a course completion certificate after successful completion of the course on the basis of their performance in quizzes, activities, discussion forums and terminal assignment. For this purpose, the course will be treated as a non-credit self-paced course. • The learners, who require a credit certificate for credit transfer as per UGC guidelines, will be required to appear in the term-end examination which will be conducted by National Testing Agency (NTA).
Internal assessment=30, End-term=70
Minimum 40% in each would be required to pass the course and get completion certificate

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