B.S.A. Presidential Address 1986 The Undergraduate Curriculum in Sociology - `A Core for Humane Education'

Abstract

Neither the furtherance of the discipline nor the need for trained professionals in themselves justify 78 institutions offering single-subject sociology degrees. Sociology has enjoyed widespread support because of the inherent centrality of the idea of the social in a wide variety of disciplines and because it can provide the `core for a humane education'. We need to fulfil the educational promise of the discipline by reviewing the first degree curriculum to ensure that it does promote the skills and capacities of which it is such an inherently suitable bearer.