Social Sciences

At the University of Bonn, the departments of political science and sociology have merged into a single institute. The joint teaching degree program “Social Sciences” seeks to provide students with fundamental academic and profession-related knowledge of the conditions and causalities in politics and society.

The goal is to enable them to understand social and political problem situations, to place and analyze them within larger contexts and, in order to do that, to work through for themselves the basic approaches of social, political and state theory. Students are equipped to analyze the conditions that spawn social problems and the conditions in which such problems are solved, taking examples of historical prerequisites for change, opportunities to reshape or influence such problem situations, decision-making structures, evaluation criteria, etc.

In teaching degree programs for grammar and comprehensive schools, students choose two school subjects. Thus, in addition to Social Sciences, students are enrolled for a second subject as well as educational sciences.

Possible lines of work:

Teaching at grammar and comprehensive schools. To teach at a German public school, candidates must follow up their bachelor’s degree with a Master of Education degree program as well as practical teacher training.

Journalism, public relations, media/communications industry (advertising, PR), media consulting, public authorities, public administration, industry and trade associations, political or other foundations, policy consulting (think tanks, foundations, public affairs agencies), international organizations, opinion polling, adult education, academia (teaching/research at universities, research institutions etc.)