Professor Christian Staerkle from the University of Geneva will give a workshop on: "Status effects on justice attitudes" . The workshop is open to all interested parties and it will take place on Monday-Wednesday, March 26-28, 2007 as follows:

Monday March 26 at 10 - 14 in seminar room 2 (Unioninkatu 37)

Tuesday March 27 at 10-14 in seminar room 3 (Unioninkatu 37)

Wednesday March 28 at 10-14 in seminar room 3 (Unioninkatu 37)

Overview of the workshop:

The workshop describes recent theory and research on justice attitudes, understood as positionings towards policies destined to regulate relations within and between groups. Justice attitudes cover a wide range of policies aimed at fostering or maintaining a given form of social order, including disciplinary and repressive policies, group rights and discriminatory policies, as well as redistributive welfare policies. Based on theories of social representations, intergroup relations and social legitimacy, the workshop introduces a model of lay conceptions of social order, and describes some of the processes through which individuals try to maintain or change existing social arrangements. The main focus will be set on group-level variation of justice attitudes. To what extent do justice attitudes of groups situated at different positions in the social hierarchy differ from each other? To answer this question, research will be presented which compares justice attitudes of dominant and subordinate groups, majorities and minorities, economically vulnerable or secure groups, and normative and counter-normative groups. Thereby, the workshop aims to shed light on mechanisms of social inclusion and exclusion and the social psychological bases of social order.

Familiarity with basic social psychological theories is assumed, but no specific knowledge is required to follow this workshop. Throughout the workshop, time will be dedicated to group work and collective discussion. Evaluation will be based on reports written either individually or in small groups of 2 to 3 students.

A bibliography will be provided here closer to the workshop.

The workshop and a written report together give 2 credit points (1 old study week) towards study unit SP55. Please register for the course no later than March 16, 2007 at antero.olakivi@helsinki.fi.