Faculty of Social Science

The section is an organisation unit of the Faculty of Social Science comprising the teaching and research fields of Social Psychology and Social Anthropology.

About us

The section Social Psychology and Social Anthropology deals with the manifold relations between individuals on the one hand and groups, communities, societies and cultures on the other hand.

Such relations are extremely complex and dynamic in the transnational and transcultural constellation of an increasingly globalised world. They are permanently changing and the affected people and collectives are subject to continuing reflection and orientation performances. They do not only open up new attractive options for acting and enriching possibilities for living, but also pose new challenges and difficult tasks. Dramatic disruptions of familiar ways of life, changes of personal and collective identity as well as an upgrading of occupational qualifications and the general action potential are sometimes inevitable.

Flexibility and adaptability, readiness to take on responsibility and initiative as well as many other "general key qualifications" are imperative in many professions and private action fields today. This applies not least for "intercultural competence". Intercultural communication, cooperation and coexistence have become a normality that numerous people have to adapt to by developing specific abilities and skills.

The members of the section research such processes mainly from a social and cultural psychological as well as an ethnological (social and cultural anthropological) perspective. This often leads to a transgression not only of the horizons of "one’s own" society and culture, but also the borders of scientific disciplines. Trans- and interdisciplinary perspectives, the theories, methods, and empirical findings e.g. of Sociology and Philosophy are included as a matter of course.

An important objective of the section is the differentiated comparative analysis of competing or complementary theoretical approaches from the Social and Cultural Sciences (e.g. action and interaction theories, social and cultural theories) as well as the comparative studies of socio-cultural ways of life and subjectivity.

The research methods of the empiric projects of the members of the sections are mainly oriented on the "interpretative paradigm". Teaching of hermeneutic methodology of social research and cultural analysis as well as the practising of so-called qualitative methods in training research projects are obligatory parts of the teaching in the Bachelor and the Master degree courses.

The scientific expertise and research competence gained in the courses is brought to fruition in variable application fields. Among them for instance particularly the person-related services or especially the work in the health care system with its problems of intercultural communication and cooperation (medicine, psychiatry, psychotherapy, psychosocial consulting) and finally the intercultural conflict analysis and consulting (mediation).

The Social Psychology and Social Anthropology Section managed to accomplish a generational change (cp. Prof. Dr. em. Helmut Nolte), a partial scientific new orientation and considerable restructuring of research programmes and teaching contents in the last two years. These changes are in the consolidating phase now and are being adjusted within the section as well as to other sections of the Faculty of Social Science, but also with new cooperation partners in other faculties of the Ruhr-Universität Bochum. The already existing profile which serves to show the specific features of the Social Psychology and Social Anthropology Section and also expresses its aim to join in innovative developments of topical Social and Cultural Sciences on national and international level while setting its own social and cultural scientific emphases is thereby made more precise.

Profile of the Social Psychology and Social Anthropology Section

• Profile of Social Theory and Social Psychology
• Profile of Social Anthropology