Abstract

VALENCIA GUTIERREZ, Alberto. Sociology in the province. The Universidad del Valle programs (Cali, Colombia). Rev. colomb. soc. [online]. 2019, vol.42, n.2, pp.46-66. ISSN 0120-159X.  https://doi.org/10.15446/rcs.v42n2.57867.

The Department of Social Sciences of the Universidad del Valle was created in 1969 and in 1980, it launched a Sociology program, which rallied a group of social scientists that have been fundamental for the development of this discipline in the country. From a sociological perspective, the article describes the context in which this academic unit was created and its project for forming sociologists, amidst the transformations of the 1960s and 70s, which opened paths for the organization of the social sciences in Colombia. It also explains the academic background and trajectory of the group of professors that made up the faculty: the pillars of their conception of sociology and the type of learning they fostered, based on the idea that sociology is a profession defined by research and by a debate in which different perspectives and orientations converge, at both the theoretical and the methodological levels. The work dynamics of this group of professors led to the creation of the Master in Sociology in 1991 and the PhD in Sociology in 2016.

The article also shows how the development of other sociology programs is assumed critically, in particular that of the Universidad Nacional de Colombia created twenty years earlier, and of the so-called pontifical universities. The objective of this paper is to contribute to the history of sociology in Colombia, from its beginnings in the 1960s. The text is the result of the author's experience as member of the Department of Social Sciences of the Universidad del Valle during the entire period covered by the study. It is, thus, a participatory research project based on primary sources such as non-structured interviews.

Descriptors: academic trajectory, Colombia, professional education, sociology.

Keywords : academic practices; groups of professors; history of sociology; research methods; sociological theory; teaching of sociology.

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