Graduate School of Social SciencesWaseda University

Founded in 1966 with the vision to pursue the “comprehensiveness of the social sciences,” our school has grown, and it will soon celebrate its 50th anniversary. By confronting various problems faced by humanity, striving to overcome complex confrontations and searching for a new world order, our school’s distinctive attitude towards academics sheds a unique light on the world even in the present day. The basis of this light is in our mission that emphasizes that we are needed more and more in our society.

Searching for and learning comprehensively about the social sciences

The School of Social Sciences aims for an integration of the social sciences through interdisciplinary education and research. Various social sciences disciplines, such as political science, law, economics, business administration, accounting and others, play a crucial social role in each specific field of expertise. However, strengthening these specific areas creates a narrow academic field, which results in the danger of losing the ability to deal with the complexity of modern society.

When facing the issues of the contemporary world, the ability to solve problems is based on comprehensive thinking that can make the most of the specialties and integration of each field. In order to do so, it is essential to obtain a fundamental understanding of history, ideology and communication research as well as scietific methodology, in addition to some specific methods in the field of social sciences. The ability to face various problems as a generalist means knowing your own specialty in the social sciences while acquiring multifaceted basic capabilities in the other fields. In this sense, our school places grave importance in a ‘comprehensive’ approach.

Learning about and being at the forefront of the social sciences

In order to solve the many problems troubling our world today, we cannot just rely on applying the knowledge of traditional academic fields. Environmental problems, conflicts, peace-related problems, food security problems and various human rights related problems are all very complex issues. It is essential to build a new framework, combining various approaches based on an in depth insights about many different subjects. Interdisciplinary research and education will play an important role in creating a new horizon at the forefront of higher knowledge.

Our school has endeavored to become ‘the school open to society’, welcoming students with a rich experience in society, and has dedicated itself to making the most of adapting to new ways of thinking and applying them to real societal issues. When this new way of thinking is met with interdisciplinary theory, we can expect the birth of a new problem-solving theory. Our school aspires to ‘cutting edge’ academic learning to support the ‘ability to solve problems.’

Searching for and learning about global social sciences

Since our school’s founding, we have focused on the grave discord of values that shadow contemporary issues. As globalization develops, reconciliation between various clashing schools of thought that exist in the world and the necessity to create peace, have become urgent tasks. We will integrate the interdisciplinary approach to the social sciences into cross culture communication.

As well as being the school ‘open to society’, we will also strengthen our goal of being ‘open to the world.’ The Contemporary Japanese Studies Program aka CJSP, which started in 2011 as an English-based degree program in which lectures and seminars are taught in English, is one attempt to internationalize various educational fields. While strengthening the diversity of students, our school is not just satisfied with Japanese common sense but strives to be at the forefront in global education and research to provide the keys to solving the issues at hand.

As a school promoting such education and research, we would like those of you who are looking at this page to embody the same ideals, pursue learning and research activities together and also look forward to the day we can share the results of our research with the global community.