Actualités et agenda
Nos formations
Présentation
The course aims to provide students an understanding of the critical role of food systems in public health and global environmental change. We will consider the complex links and power relations between public actors, agri-food businesses and consumers as political actors as well as the moral and science-based debates surrounding food, health and environment.
This course will explore topics such as food crisis and risk governance, nutrition and public health, agrobusiness lobbying as well as food movements and alternative food systems, in both historical and contemporary contexts.
The course is organized around oral presentations and discussions of scientific articles. It also provides methods for conducting a collective research survey, allowing students to get a more practical understanding of research process on food policies.
Learning objectives:
- Academic research: the search for, assimilation and synthesis of the latest academic evidence; research design, data collection and analysis
- Argumentation and speaking skills: the construction of an analytical, accurate and well- presented oral argument
- Reading and critical thinking: how to identify the key arguments and evidence used in a piece of writing and critically appraise these.
Modalités
Each class will articulate a specific topic (food information and education; global food security, etc.) with key concepts of political sociology of public action: agenda-setting, social problems, controversies as well as implementation and policy instruments.
Students will be asked to be active during the course through oral presentations and class participation. The presentation consists of a critical analysis of a scientific paper. Students will work in groups of two. They will choose an article (that I select for each session) to study during the first class. They will summarize/comment/criticize the sociological “puzzle”, the methodology, the main argument(s) and results into a 10/15-minute presentation. Then, they will respond to questions of the audience.
Students will also constitute conduct a collective research survey on a specific case related to food, health and environment. To do that, they will team up in groups of 3, choose one topic on which to concentrate and work in depth. They will learn during the seminars how to conduct research (research design, literature reviews, conducting interviews…). At the end of the course, they will submit a dossier (10-15 pages) presenting their case and using the concepts introduced during the course.
Evaluation
The assessment for this course will be based on:
- Oral presentation and class participation (30%)
- Collective research survey (70%)