This course aims at introducing students to the approach, methods and topics of sociology and at showing both the difference and complementarity between sociology and the social teachings of the Church. In order to do so, the course presents the conceptual and theoretical tools this discipline provides to the analysis of the social forces that govern behaviour and shape social life, as well as the main social institutions and processes that constitute our experience in society. The expectation is that students develop a “social eye” and learn to apply a “sociological imagination” to the problems that surround them, with the goal of understanding more in depth the challenges of the society they live in and of searching for solutions to improve their individual and social lives.