Sociology in Brazil and the interdisciplinarity in the social sciences

Abstract

The interdisciplinarity constitutes sociology as an academic discipline. This characteristic stimulates the discussion about its theoretical and methodological specificities, the formation of a disciplinary culture and the corporatist debate on what would be its peculiarities as a field of knowledge. The synthetic science, as proposed by Comte, since the start encompassed contributions of other human science and also of the hard sciences. In Brazil, sociology was synonymous of social sciences. Anthropology, political science and sociology shared the same field, building up common forums of discussion while, at the same time, strengthened their disciplinary trajectories. Since the 1990s, graduate studies expanded in Brazil; there was also the growth of graduate programs, undergraduate courses and professionals associations in the three areas. There was the growth of graduate education encompassing the contributions of the economy, geography and of other similar disciplines. We argue that, however the interdisciplinarity is the in the future of scientific investigation and can give limits to overspecialization, paradoxically solid disciplines make interdisciplinarity more effective. In this we analyze this process in Brazil, focusing the graduate courses in sociology and social science, using data from Coordination for the Improvement of Personal in Superior Education (Coordenação de Aperfeiçoamento de Pessoal de Ensino Superior – Capes), of the Ministry of Education of Brazil.