The Department offers BA, MA, Ph. D programmes in Sociology. Different levels of teaching/learning offers ample scope to do justice to the wide scope as well as the theoretical as well as methodological intricacies of the discipline. An important feature of the Sociology programme here is that it emphasizes interdisciplinary study and research. This explains the inclusion of many sub-fields such as Sociology of Science, Sociology of Industry and Work, Sociology of Environment, Sociology of Education, Sociology of Organizations, Professions and Occupations, Globalization and Society, Social Gerontology, Visual Sociology, Medical Sociology, Sociology of Childhood or Sociology of Gender.

Departmental History:

The Department of Sociology formally came into being in December 2001, though teaching Sociology started much earlier, in 1992, as a component of the Humanities course for students in the Faculty of Engineering and Technology. Its faculty offered and is still offering courses to the students of engineering and technology at different levels, sensitizing them to the enormous social implications of what they learn and what they will have to do in their future professional role. The Department started offering a two-year M Phil programme in Sociology, the first of its kind in West Bengal, from July 2002 and Ph D programme since 2004. Since 2005 it started four Extra Departmental courses for under-graduate students of various departments of the Arts Faculty of the University. Department launched since July 2006, a Master’s programme in Sociology. BA Honours in Sociology started since 2015. The Department offered Certificate, Diploma and Advanced Diploma course (each one-year course) in Applied Sociology under UGC’s Career Oriented Programme scheme, which funded it for five years (2010-2015). The Applied Sociology course has now been incorporated as a compulsory Sociology Major course in its four year UG programme. The Centre for the study of Religion and Society was established in 2011. It offers PG Diploma course on Society, Religion and Social Work since 2015.

Nature of Academic Programmes:

The basic character of Sociology lies in its criticality and reflexive nature. In Sociology one searches for and looks at recurrent patterns in the familiar social world quite differently from the way one is conventionally accustomed to do. In doing so students build up a store of sociological knowledge that provides them with necessary faculties to sharpen their observational ingenuity or develop their analytical capability. In a very important sense Sociology thus empowers its students and practitioners by equipping them with powerful insights into the social forces and processes that mould human lives and experiences, opportunities and constraints, and problems and possibilities in the contemporary, and yet historically specific, modern society. This is the liberating spirit that animates and inspires everyone who is concerned with the academic programmes and activities in the Department of Sociology at Jadavpur.

The sociological curriculum here at Jadavpur University seeks to promote, on the one hand, disciplinary excellence in a wide range of theoretical perspectives and innovative approaches within both the existing and emerging areas of Sociology; on the other hand, students are also required to learn a fairly large variety of historical, qualitative and quantitative methods, keeping in view the vital differences as well as relations between methods and methodology. The students are required to carry out different types of assignments that involve participant/non-participant observation, intensive interviewing, recording of naturally occurring events, large and small scale sample surveys, tapping archival sources, analysis of census and other types of collected data, examining and interpreting historical and contemporary documents, undertaking content, narrative and semiotic analyses etc. One very important area of emphasis of this Department is contemporary India, a society, which is changing fast in the era of globalisation. At the international level Indian society has become an important global player. At the domestic level, on the one hand, one may notice some positive trends like the growing economy, the aggressive take-over by Indian corporate giants, rapid urbanization in some pockets and the expanding middle class with its changed style of living. On the other hand, there is a growing socio-economic divide among people. The continuing debate on quota-question is one among many indicators of the prevalence of various types of social exclusion as well as unfavourable inclusion still practiced in a formally all-inclusive democratic, equalitarian Indian society. The contradiction becomes more evident from the fact that though it fails to universalize even primary level education, it follows the current pragmatic trend with a focus on sponsored research and market-responsive applied professional training. All these paradoxes make Indian social reality a very interesting ‘problem’ for sociological research and analysis.

Sociological skills constitute a gateway to many different and satisfying career opportunities. These range from teaching assignments in academic institutions to many challenging positions such as researchers, social analysts, managers, administrators, counselors, social workers, journalists, planners and policy analysts, personnel and labor relations specialists in a wide variety of government and non-government organizations and agencies. As obvious, these may be concerned with almost every conceivable sphere of activities and services, viz. law and criminal justice, health services (counselling, nursing, etc.) and public hygiene, census and other statistical operations, field surveys, rural development, urban planning and management, industry and business, community service, counseling and social welfare resource development and management, public policy, public administration etc.