Abstract

BELTRAN CELY, William Mauricio  and  TORRES ORTIZ, María Raquel. Quality and relevance of the undergraduate degree in sociology of the National University of Colombia: The perspectives of its graduates. Rev. colomb. soc. [online]. 2015, vol.38, n.2, pp.139-165. ISSN 0120-159X.  https://doi.org/10.15446/rcs.v38n2.55551.

This paper presents the results of a research Project whose objective was to evaluate the quality and relevance of the Sociology program of the National University. The program functioned from 1993 to 2008. The results are based on the perspectives of graduates of the program whose graduation years ranged from 2000 to 2010. For this purpose quantitative (based on 159 graduates) and qualitative (based on 12 in-depth interviews) information was used for the analysis. The project was carried out during the years 2013 and 2014. The program has maintained throughout its history a disciplined orientation designed to produce academics and researchers. To be successful it has emphasized classical authors such as Marx, Weber, Durkheim, and Parsons, among others. Nonetheless, only one-fourth of the graduates are engaged in teaching; the others are found employed in professional activities such as consulting, social intervention, amassing and categorizing data. For these activities, job offers are not oriented exclusively to sociologists but also to "social scientists" (e.g. anthropologists, psychologists, political scientists, and social workers, among others), preferably with experience in a specific area e.g. education, culture, work, environment, armed conflict, urban and rural problems. These activities demand specific skills of the graduates such as management of information programs, knowledge of statistics, skills for working on teams, capabilities for formulation projects, etc. Compared with these demands, the component for development evaluated most highly by the graduates (both in quality and affiliation) is the area of special sociology. The components with the lowest evaluation were found in the area of methods and in the development of the management of data-processing information programs (software). The conclusion is that the preparation offered by the sociology program is partially what is needed and insufficient to meet the demands placed upon graduates by the labor market.

Keywords : quality; graduates; relevance; curricular program; sociology; Universidad Nacional de Colombia.

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