Department of Sociology, NCCU

National Chengchi University (NCCU) was founded in 1927 and re-established in Taiwan in 1954. There were five undergraduate programs at the NCCU in 1955, one of which was the department of minorities administration on the border region. That was the predecessor of both the department of sociology and the department of ethnology. In order to enhance the teaching and research in basic social sciences, the Taiwan Ministry of Education approved NCCU to establish the department of sociology in 1981.

In 1986, the department of sociology extended its undergraduate program to the graduate level and offered Master’s degrees in response to Taiwan’s rapid social, economic, political, and cultural transformations, which called for highly trained professionals and researchers in sociology. In 1999, the department established its Doctoral degree program. At that time the doctoral program was only the third of its kind in Taiwan. Despite these, the graduate institute of sociology included Master and Ph.D. degree of both sociology and social work. The complete separation of sociology from social work was not accomplished until 2006, after many years of negotiation among faculty members and the university and the establishment of graduate institute of social work. Since then the department of sociology was completely independent.

According to the specialties of our faculty and with resources offered by the university and government, our faculty members are joining forces with researchers within and outside NCCU to initiate important research plans. Currently, a research team within the department has been formed, TEPS, to undertake the planning of a longitudinal study which focuses on the relationship between education and labor market.

Our courses are also a part of multi-disciplinary social science programs such as “Social Science Honor Program” and “Social Survey Research Program.” We continue to plan other multi-disciplinary programs with other related departments to provide our students with broader and more diverse choices in their development and their future career options.

Career possibilities are very diverse for students graduating from the Department of Sociology. Our graduates have gone abroad for further study, served in government organizations, taught or conducted research in educational institutions and research institutes, worked for private non-profit organizations, engaged in market research, public relations, personnel management and held positions such as business managers in large corporations. With the professional specialty and research proficiency obtained from the department, our graduates are qualified for any career choice they make.