The Department
of Sociology and Social Work

Introduction of our department

The Department of Sociology and Social Work promotes modern approaches to sociology, emphasizing the need for mastering both theoretical sociological knowledge and sociological methodology, including applied statistics and qualitative and quantitative data analysis. Our curriculum includes courses on both contemporary and classical sociological theory as well as practical and applied sociology. Our students are encouraged to work according to the principles of healthy methodological skepticism and paradigmatic tolerance. We offer both master’s and bachelor’s programs. 

The scope of our research activities is quite extensive: the traditional Anglo-Saxon concept of social demography as a comprehensive field of study forms the basis for our inquiry into the domains of social inequalities and social mobility, education, religion, family life, kinship relations, life cycle and gender, urban sociology, sociology of health and illness, medical sociology, sociology of media, sociology of bureaucracy and formal organizations, sociology of the professions, sociology of public opinion and contemporary as well as classical sociological theory and historical sociology.

With a spirit of collegiality governing them, our researchers, while working on their own, use various methods of data collection and analysis. Quantitative approach-based research relies on statistical analysis of data collected in a framework of extensive survey projects or gathered in population registers while using other methods, such as quantitative media content analysis. Ethnographic researchers use methods such as participant observation and interviews, while other colleagues base their work on critical discourse analysis or on the comparative historical method. Some faculty members have repeatedly used synergies provided by various methods of data collection and analysis or have cooperated on projects transcending traditional methodological barriers.

Information about study