Founded at the end of the 1950s as a major concentration area under the Department of Social Sciences, the Department of Sociology which became an independent department in 1982 has a remarkable position in the production of sociological knowledge and education in Turkey. Sociology at METU offers cutting-edge undergraduate and graduate programs for students interested in the social dimensions of economics, politics, culture and history and helps them acquire both theoretical and applied sociological skills and competencies for a critical analysis of changing dynamics of society.

Sociology education in our department is founded on a strong tradition of excellence. For the last five decades, our faculty has included social sciences' most influential and leading names in Turkey such as Mübeccel Kıray, İbrahim Karal , Şerif Mardin and İbrahim Yasa who set the standards of our internationally recognized education. A subsequent generation of distinguished scholars such as Deniz Kandiyoti, Ayşe Öncü, Sevgi Aral, Ayşe Kudat and Bahattin Akşit are among the few whose contributions in the earlier periods helped METU Sociology become a pioneering department in the field.

Today, our faculty continues to practice research and teaching on important topics of concern not only in Turkey, but also in Europe, Eurasia, Central Asia, Caucasus, Latin America and the Middle East on a comparative basis ranging from social institutions, networks, inequalities, migration, and gender, to globalization, post-modernity, politics and cultural sociology . The latest statistical models as well as advanced ethnographic research, historical inquiry and survey analysis establish the frame of the work done in our department.

The close relation between the teaching staff and students creates the dynamics of a lively departmental spirit which characterizes the teaching of sociology in our university. Graduates of the department are to be found throughout the national and international academic sphere, as well as the government institutions in Turkey, and the private sector in the local and global realm.