Addis Ababa University - Department of Sociology

Click on thumbnail to visit site

Addis Ababa University

Piazza, Addis Ababa, Ethiopia

Pursuant to the overall restructuring of curricula in the Social and Behavioral Sciences at the third level undertaken during the late 1970s, the College of Social Sciences was created comprising nine departments. The old School of Social Work and the Department of Sociology and Anthropology were merged in 1978 to become the Department of Applied Sociology within the newly set up College of Social Sciences.

The term Applied Sociology was coined to impart the sense that the teaching of Sociology in a revolutionary society should have a strong practical bent. It is against this background that the nature and thrust of the curriculum of the Department of Applied Sociology, which is the predecessor of the Department of Sociology and Social Administration, should be understood.

However, the weaknesses of this curriculum that was designed in haste became apparent soon enough, and only four years after it went into effect, the Department started to make preparations for its revision. Accordingly, the then Department of Applied Sociology conducted a revision of its undergraduate program as thoroughly as the situation prevailing at the time would permit. The outcome was the curriculum that was in force till ----- and the name change of the Department to that of the Department of Sociology and Social Administration.  Although by far a great improvement on its predecessor, this curriculum too had several drawbacks.

The curriculum of the Department of Sociology and Social Administration that was in use till 2003 had not been revised since 1984. In the past decade, particularly since 1995, the faculty of the Department had come to realize the need for revision, and had thus set up a special Departmental Curriculum Revision Committee.

The department, therefore, prepared another curriculum that offers a broad range of  courses from sociological and anthropological perspectives for students, leading to an understanding of our own as well as other societies and cultures. The name of the Department was also changed from Sociology and Social Administration to Sociology and Social Anthropology.

For the past many decades the disciplines of sociology and anthropology are expanding and the recognition of these two interrelated disciplines for socio-economic development is also increasing from time to time. In order to meet the growing demand for the graduates of sociology and anthropology, the then Department of Sociology and Social Anthropology was split into two. The current Department of Sociology is a result of that split. It currently runs  BA (regular and extension), MA, and PhD programs in sociology.