Türkiye’de Çalışma Ekonomisi ve Endüstri İlişkileri Lisansüstü Tezlerinin “Sosyal Politika” Bağlamında Değerlendirilmesi

Abstract

In the present day, the discipline of “social policy” is mainly studied under the departments of Labour Economics and Industrial Relations (LEIR) since it includes topics such as resolving problems of workers during production and reducing class conflicts. Apart from the departments of “Labour Economics and Industrial Relations,” courses and academic studies on “social policy” are also current in other departments such as sociology and public administration. Even though the development of social policy in Turkey is mainly covered by two prominent schools (Istanbul University and Ankara University), there are different opinions on the matter. The present study analyses the outlook of the academic projection of “social policy,” which has a long-standing tradition within the context of graduate theses. Narrowly defined, social policy aims to eliminate the conflicts, imbalances, and conflicts of interest that arise between employers and workers in the capitalist order, to harmonize between classes and to address the problems of industrial societies. Broadly defined however, social policy refers to studies that deal with issues of all social groups, covering common areas and producing solutions to problems. Social policy, which is one of the fundamental fields of the Labour Economics and Industrial Relations discipline, has spread to fields such as labour markets, labour, social security law, human resource management, sociology of work and organizational management, and work psychology. This study aims to assess postgraduate dissertations on the existing Turkish literature in the field of “social policy.” In this context, postgraduate theses in the field of Labour Economics and Industrial Relations from the dissertation archive of the Council of Higher Education (CoHE) were studied by document examination. Findings obtained as a result of the investigation were interpreted by showing percentage and frequency tables.