Sociology

Sociology study program offers a scientifically grounded knowledge on how to understand, explain and interpret processes of social reality, including social structures, social institutions and social conflicts. It also draws students attention to various forms of life and self-understanding social actors are involved in. The study program assists students to develop their competence to comprehend and take advantage of basic sociological concepts and theories. With a strong methodological focus our study program encourage students to learn pivotal procedures of sociological research, data analysis and interpretation.

Students after their graduation are able to participation in processing primary forms of analytical knowledge dealing with the workings of social institutions, social actions, and social relations. They are competent to participate in empirical sociological research procedures including statistical data analysis. While our students are able to think conceptually in thanks to their knowledge of both contemporary and classical sociological theories they can also put to use scholarly knowledge dealing with demographic, social and cultural trends in social stratification, social integration, families, gender relations, socialisation, and value patterns of current social reality.

After successfully completing his/her studies the graduate is able to:

• understand basic methodological procedures of empirical research and data analysis.
• utilise basic techniques of data collection and statistical analysis
• comprehend principal developments in the field of theoretical sociology, sociological explanation and interpretation
• understand basic conceptual practices and theoretically grounded modes of sociological interpretation
• analytically apply sociological knowledge dealing with different social fields

Sociology offers a professional development of those interpretive and analytical competences which can be utilised in various social fields, for instance in education, journalism, marketing and public relations, management of organisations, social works, integration of immigrants, state administration, conflict resolution, family counselling, urban development etc. Students after their graduation are able to participate in various projects as team members dealing with analytical and organisational tasks.

Practical training is a volunatry part of the Sociology Program Curriculum and it is framed as research practice. For the Gender Specialisation, practical training of 80 hours in a selected organization plus analytical report based on such experience are an integral and compulsory part of the curiculum.

The standard range of a bachelor thesis is between 72 000 - 90 000 characers including footnotes, title page, contents, index, references and annotations. The character of a bachelor theses is not an independent empirical reserch (conditions for excemptions from this rule by the supervisors apply). Students can work with published texts and publicly accessible data in their secondary analyses. They should perform ability to critically assess and work with academic texts, adapt concepts and theories relevant for their field of analysis and provide and explore topical answers for their research question. The Internal Directive FSS No. 5/2024 State Final Examinations, Final Theses and their Defences specify specific guidelines for all theses.

The graduate of this study program can continue (when meeting the admission criteria) in any graduate (M.A. level) study program at the faculty.