Recent Developments and Prospects in the Teaching, Training and Practice of Sociology in the Philippines

This paper documents recent developments and prospects in the teaching, training and practice of Sociology in the Philippines as result of the establishment of the Commission on Higher Education (CHED) in 1994, the state-based regulatory body of higher educational institutions (HEIs), and the recent-promulgation of K-12 Basic Education Law in 2013, which shifted the ten-year basic education training to 12 years in the country. It reports the process and dynamics of developing Policies, Standards, and Guidelines (PSGs) for offering academic degrees in Sociology including baccalaureate, masters, and doctorate levels. Correspondingly, it relates how Sociology and social science experts from CHED were tasked by the Department of Education (DepEd) to assist in developing and shaping Grades 11 and 12 curricula guides for the humanities and social sciences track. Using archival documents and ethnographic observations, this paper examines how these recent structural developments in Philippine educational system project an emerging set of academic scenarios and challenges for Philippine Sociology both as an academic discipline and profession. This paper argues that while state regulation in the teaching and training of Sociology has relatively been in place, and earlier introduced as a social science discipline as part of the new K-12 curricula, the pursuit to develop a more-grounded and contextualized Philippine Sociology (in terms of theory and methods) remains wanting. In so doing, the paper ends with concluding insights on how Philippine Sociology may continue to evolve as a relevant and engaging discipline and profession through academic departments from various HEIs and the Philippine Sociological Society, the recognized-professional organization of sociologists in the country.