Welcome to the Department of Sociology and Work Science

January 1, 2012  the Department of Sociology and Work Science was founded by the merger of the Department of Sociology and the Department of Work Science. We will gradually build up this page with a new single content. The ancient sites of the departments will remain for the foreseeable future, but will not be updated.

The Department of Sociology and Work Science aims to promote, carry out and develop interdisciplinary research and education in the field of Work Science. An extensive amount of activity within the department is commissioned and evaluative work.

Sociology seeks to understand and explain conditions in society and how they influence people’s lifes. This is done with the help of social-scientific theories and methods. The subject involves study of social relationships and social processes of different kinds – ranging from global relations and historical changes in society to people’s everyday encounters, life stories and identities.

Sociology is interested in questions of power and gender relations, working life and leadership, social inequality, ethnic relations and conflicts, youth culture, education, mass media, social movements, families, child development, crime, housing, the welfare state, health care and similar issues.

Sociological analyses often give fresh insight into things we have previously taken for granted. Thus, sociology is basically a critical and reflective science, which means that its knowledge frequently contributes to change. Besides the general description of sociology, our institution gives special attention to the following scientific approaches:

• integration of theory, method, and empirical knowledge
• emphasis on the connections between social structures and human action, notably how we are influenced by our class, gender, ethnic group and generation
• learning from both the classics of sociology and contemporary sociological theorising
• reflection on how knowledge is formed and a focus on the social conditions and experiences that affect this process.