Sociologie Românească

Editor’s Note

Bogdan Bucur — 2025-12-26

In 2025, we commemorate the centennial of the first sociological field research campaign conducted in Greater Romania in 1925 by Dimitrie Gusti’s Sociological School in the village of Goicea Mare, Dolj County, Oltenia Province. The centenary of this remarkable milestone in the history of Romanian sociology calls for a special commemorative issue of Sociologie Românească, the journal founded by Dimitrie Gusti in 1936. The current issue includes eight original contributions emphasising the main achievements of Romanian sociology, particularly from the perspective of field research. This thematic issue pays tribute to Romanian sociology and to those who contributed to its foundation, continuation, and revival during the interwar, communist, and post-communist periods.

The Monographic School of Bucharest (1910-1948) on the Centennial of Romanian Sociological Research (1925-2025)

Bogdan Bucur — 2025-12-26

The year 2025 marks the centennial of the first sociological field research campaign conducted by the Monographic School of Bucharest in 1925, in Greater Romania, specifically in Goicea Mare, Dolj County, Oltenia. This campaign can be regarded as the birth certificate of Romanian sociology, not solely in terms of academic practice and fieldwork, but also in its theoretical approach and methodological innovation. With the establishment of Romania’s first and only school of sociology, by Dimitrie Gusti, Romania – alongside the United States of America, France, Germany or the United Kingdom – became one of the few countries in the world that developed a national school of sociology closely connected to the international scientific community. Field research has been regarded, within the Gustian paradigm, as a foundational component of sociology and the essential mechanism for developing a descriptive discipline capable of investigating contemporary social realities. Without fieldwork, sociology risks being reduced to a prescriptive science, focused on interpreting past realities. Of course, forms of sociology existed in Romania before Gusti: it was referred to as so-called armchair sociology and involved compiling books written by a small number of gifted writers (primarily philosophers and social historians of the nineteenth century). Obviously, those who engaged in this activity went as far as to proclaim themselves professors of sociology before their students. In this context, under the name of Monographic School of Bucharest, Dimitrie Gusti’s achievement – as the founding father of Romanian sociology – was widely regarded by contemporaries as extraordinary, given the complex institutional and political context of interwar Romania, and has continued to be acknowledged in similar terms by subsequent generations of scholars.

Social clustering of health behaviors in rural Romania: a personal network analysis

Marian-Gabriel Hâncean — 2025-12-28

Background. Romanian sociology has lacked systematic personal network analysis (PNA) methods for rural research. Social clustering patterns in health behaviors indicate whether interventions should target individuals or social groups, yet detecting these patterns requires network-level data. We develop and test a PNA design for Romanian rural contexts, using health behaviors to demonstrate the method’s capacity to detect social clustering. Methods. We conducted tablet-assisted interviews with 83 adult residents in Lerești (Argeș County). Respondents listed social contacts and provided demographic and behavioral data for themselves and their contacts. We tested the protocol across three health topics: vaccination and media use (61 ego networks), smoking (76 egos), and processed food high in salt intake (83 ego networks). Mixed-effects models analyzed clustering patterns with alters nested within egos. Results. We detected social clustering in all three topics of interest. Vaccination showed assortative patterns (OR = 3.75, 95% CI 1.79-7.85) and media effects: online-only health information use associated with lower alter vaccination (OR = 0.37, 95% CI 0.15-0.92). Smoking clustered in family-dense networks with demographic variations. Food intake displayed local assortativity beyond composition effects (OR = 1.17, p = 0.01). Network context explained 11-67% of behavioral variance across health topics. Conclusions. PNA can be systematically applied in Romanian rural communities to detect social mechanisms across behavioral domains. Our design generates reproducible data suitable for mixed-effects analysis and reveals network effects that individual-level analysis would miss. This method contributes to Romanian rural sociology’s empirical tradition and provides tools for network-informed public health interventions.

Reveniri la Goicea (Mare): satul românesc între monografierea de tip gustian și abordarea proceselor locale de schimbare

Sorin Mitulescu — 2025-12-28

The Romanian village has long been an object of scientific interest, with strong foundations laid by the monographic school led by Dimitrie Gusti. Today, this legacy remains relevant, though the rural context has changed profoundly. Villages once documented by Gusti’s teams offer valuable ground for tracing a historical trajectory that spans a century and several sociopolitical eras. This paper revisits key efforts to combine synchronic and diachronic perspectives in rural research, from the innovative methodologies of monographers such as H. H. Stahl and A. Golopenția to more recent studies focused on understanding both the lived realities of the Romanian village and its structural transformations. Reassessing and adapting the monographic model may also inform more effective and sustainable rural development policies. Drastically impacted by collectivization and forced systematization during communism, and entering a new crisis after 1990, the Romanian village faces acute challenges: mass emigration, aging populations, declining birth rates, deteriorating infrastructure, and weakened social cohesion. In this context, village research can no longer rely on descriptive or nostalgic approaches. Methodological renewal is essential. The present essay proposes a reflection on how a new monographic investigation – in the spirit of the early 20th-century inquiries – might be reimagined today. Using the case of Goicea Mare, first studied in 1925, we explore what aspects remain relevant and how a return to this site might shed light on the evolving dynamics of rural life in contemporary Romania.

“It will be a joy when they start working again” Bucharest’s public water fountains and the strategies used by the homeless to access drinking water

Vlad-Andrei Coșmeleață — 2025-12-30

This paper approaches the issue of public water from a qualitative perspective, using semi-structured interviews to explore the experiences of homeless individuals using drinking fountains, the strategies used in order to obtain potable water, as well as access to toilets and personal hygiene. The theoretical and methodological framework of the paper draws on the legacy of Gusti’s Sociological School, focusing on fieldwork and direct observation. Interviews show that homeless people regularly use the drinking fountains, but they are taken out of service during the cold season. In order to access drinking water, homeless people resort to an informal network of social organizations, pharmacies, restaurants and interpersonal relationships with employees of private businesses, consume liquids from unfinished drinks or, when they can afford it, buy bottled water. In implementing these strategies, homeless people must navigate the stigma and prejudice of others, which can make it more difficult for them to access water, toilets and hygiene.

The Professional Inheritance of Traditional Fiddlers in Buzău County: Typologies of Continuity and Rupture

Stelian Frunză — 2025-12-31

In this study, we examine how the traditional fiddler (Lăutar) profession is passed down through generations among Roma musicians in Buzău County, Romania. We conducted interviews and reconstructed family trees across multiple generations in seven families, combining external analysis with insider perspective from a co-author who is himself a practicing traditional fiddler. Using Goffman's concept of moral career and theories of cultural capital, we analyzed how musical knowledge and professional roles are transmitted within families. Our findings show that musical inheritance follows some patterns: the profession passes almost exclusively from fathers to sons, while daughters are excluded despite talent due to concerns about reputation and safety. Mothers provide support through emotional encouragement and financial investment but are not recognized as educators in this area. Contemporary families adapt to economic pressures by combining traditional performance with other types of work, education, and migration rather than abandoning music entirely. We identified five career paths: traditional heirs who follow family apprenticeships, aspirational modernizers who pursue music strategically, constrained daughters whose careers are blocked by gender norms, economic migrants who perform abroad, and lost heirs who abandon the profession. By combining interview data with the genealogical method, we uncovered transmission patterns across generations, showing both successful continuity and points of breakdown. Professional survival depends on family networks, reputation, and economic support systems. These findings contribute to understanding how cultural professions persist in marginalized communities through family strategies that balance tradition with economic necessity while revealing the structural constraints that shape these processes.

Cum reface linia de autobuz Pitești-Moșoaia stilurile de viață rurale: predictibilitate, constrângeri și oportunități în comuna Moșoaia, județul Argeș

Alin Baraitaru — 2025-12-31

The introduction of the Pitești-Moșoaia bus line in 2024 has triggered significant social transformations in this peri-urban Romanian community. This article examines the impact of public transportation infrastructure on everyday mobility, access to services, family dynamics, gender roles, and overall quality of life. Drawing on a mixed-method approach – including a structured survey, participant observation, and informal interviews – the research adopts a holistic, community-centred perspective inspired by Dimitrie Gusti’s sociological school and its monographic tradition of studying rural life in context. The findings indicate that the bus service has reconfigured temporal routines, reduced dependency on private vehicles, and enabled increased social and economic participation. It fosters greater intergenerational connectivity and helps reduce social isolation, particularly among vulnerable groups such as the elderly, young people, and job seekers. While highlighting the positive effects, the study also examines structural constraints, including limited schedule frequency, infrastructure gaps, and discrepancies between rural rhythms and urban transport logics. Beyond its immediate context, the case of Moșoaia offers insights into the potential of public transport to serve as a vector for rural development, social cohesion, and environmental sustainability. The research situates mobility not merely as movement, but as a socially embedded resource that reshapes opportunities, identities, and local futures in post-communist rural Romania.

Living Without Water: Drought, Inequality, and Climate Silence in a Romanian Village

Costel Cocîiu — 2025-12-31

This article analyzes the experience of the water crisis in a Romanian village affected by drought, placing its approach in the context of the Centenary of the Bucharest School of Sociology. Drawing on ethnographic research and an auto-ethnographic perspective, the study investigates how inequality of access to water is structured by administrative failures and infrastructural gaps. Using Dimitrie Gusti's conceptual apparatus of “frames” and “manifestations” as an analytical tool, the paper demonstrates how an ecological phenomenon (drought) is socially transformed into a crisis of governance and mistrust. The analysis also highlights the phenomenon of “climate silence”, arguing that this is not just a consequence of a lack of information but an active social response to a crisis perceived as overwhelming and insoluble at the local level. By placing the lived experiences of villagers in dialogue with debates in political ecology and environmental sociology, the article contributes to understanding how ecological precarity is mediated by everyday inequalities and silences discourses about systemic causes. Finally, the paper emphasizes the enduring heuristic relevance of the monographic tradition for the analysis of contemporary socio-ecological issues.

Aging, Agency and Anti-Aging Discourses: A Mixed-Methods Study on Romanian Women 50+ and the Revival of Gustian Sociology

Veronica Oancea — 2025-12-31

In recent decades, old age has increasingly been framed in aesthetic, commercial, and technological discourses. For older women in particular, old age has come to be depicted less and less naturally and more and more as a problem to be addressed or concealed, creating both symbolic exclusion and new markets for “peri-menopausal wellness” or “anti-aging” products. Digital culture intensifies these imperatives within a paradox in which older women become invisible within mainstream publicity while hyper-visible as targets for beauty and health markets. In Romania, these dynamics converge with a distinct post-socialist path. Women aged 50 and above were raised during the period of state socialism, which utilized femininity for demographic objectives while simultaneously limiting consumerism. Following the workshops of 1989, neoliberal principles emphasizing self-optimization, beauty, and digital skills brought forth new contradictions, resulting in many women navigating the tension between traditional caregiving roles and modern expectations for productivity and youthfulness. This article looks at how Romanian women over 50 respond to anti-aging narrative in virtual and corporeal spaces. Based on questionnaire data among respondents in the 50 Plus Community and ethnographic observation at a wellness workshop (“Am curajul să trăiesc!” [“I have the courage to live!”], May 2025), research balances quantitative scope and qualitative depth. It explores how women interpret, oppose, and recast cultural narratives about aging against the background of centennial reflections on Dimitrie Gusti’s first monographic field studies and his methodological spirit revived to respond to twenty-first-century challenges.

The Gospel According to St Matthew? Excluded Groups, Cumulative Disadvantage and Labour Market Intervention

Silvana Crivoi — 2025-12-31

Active labour market policies (ALMPs) are intended to reduce the uncertainty in labour markets for the most vulnerable groups through the improvement of skills. Further, this is expected to promote economic and social inclusion. However, research on the topic remains sparse and evidence suggests access biases in these interventions for the most vulnerable people. While Romania forms the focus of our inquiry, the wider lessons for Central Europe and other countries are considered. Our paper contributes to research on cumulative disadvantages on ALMPs provided by public employment services (PES) to improve access and participation in activation interventions. Between February and April 2024, we undertook 38 interviews with occupational and social work professionals designated as “experts” in public institutions in Romania. Our results confirm the existence of cumulative disadvantages in access to training and counselling provided by PES for three categories of people affected by unemployment. The low-skilled, the poorest and the extremely marginalised (the “invisible”) are confronted by specific mechanisms of cumulative disadvantages that impede them from participating in ALMPs. We also identify best practices for enhancing access to these interventions and promoting social inclusion more broadly. The originality of the paper lies in its examination of the topic from the perspective of experts as sources of critical opinion on policy issues. Further research could focus on producing complementary data on the topic.

Muncă emoțională și boundary-work: formarea identității profesionale în rândul practicanților de tarot

Cosima Rughiniș — 2025-12-31

This article explores the process of identity transformation among tarot readers throughout their moral careers, from amateurs to experts. Based on in-depth interviews with six practitioners and participant observation, the research examines the strategies through which they legitimize their work within a socially ambivalent space, situated at the intersection of spirituality, psychology, and the economy. Practitioners assert their professionalism through sophisticated boundary-work techniques, distancing themselves from the traditional stigma associated with “fortune-telling” and reframing tarot as a practice of self-knowledge, introspection, and emotional guidance. The development of emotional regulation skills and the negotiation of a balance between spiritual authenticity and commercial imperatives mark the advanced stages of expertise. Social media platforms, especially TikTok, serve as spaces of interaction and solidarity, contributing to the creation of interpretive communities and the ritualization of practice in everyday life. The study contributes to the understanding of professionalization processes in non-conventional fields, highlighting how practitioners construct and legitimize new forms of professional identity.

Conferința omagială „Dimitrie Gusti, fondatorul sociologiei și promotorul culturii românești”, Sala de Consiliu a Bibliotecii Centrale Universitare „Carol I”, 26 septembrie 2025

Vladimir Pripp — 2025-12-31

The year 2025 marks the 145th anniversary of the birth and 70 years since the passing of Dimitrie Gusti, the founder of the Romanian sociology. Moreover, we celebrate a century since the first sociological field research, carried out by Dimitrie Gusti and his colleagues from the Bucharest Sociological School in the Goicea Mare village, Dolj County.

Thus, this event is a tribute to the prominent personality of Dimitrie Gusti, who contributed to the creation of Romanian sociology and promoted national culture both domestically and abroad, by developing sociological research methods and techniques, by encouraging researchers, by preserving the cultural heritage, and by establishing institutions and organizations.

The speakers of this conference represented several institutions which were either founded or managed at some point by Dimitrie Gusti, such as The National Museum of the Village, „Dimitrie Gusti”; the RADOR Press Agency, the Romanian Academy, the Research Institute for Quality of Life, but also institutions with which Dimitrie Gusti collaborated, such as the Romanian Orthodox Church.

Through the presentations and the discussions held during this conference, we emphasized Dimitrie Gusti's contribution to Romania's development. Moreover, we discussed the ways in which Dimitrie Gusti's instruments and methodology can be used to identify and solve multiple contemporary socio-economic issues, such as school dropout, the development gap between rural and urban areas, depopulation and demographic decline.

CONFERINȚA INTERNAȚIONALĂ DE ETNO-DIDACTICĂ „PATRIMONIU CULTURAL IMATERIAL FĂRĂ FRONTIERE”, EDIȚIA A X-A, IAȘI, 24-25 OCTOMBRIE 2025

Mădălina Căpraru — 2025-12-31

Between October 24 and 25, 2025, the “Alexandru Philippide” Institute of Romanian Philology, Department of Ethnology, of Romanian Academy, Iasi branch, organized the 10th International Conference on Ethno-Didactics: Intangible Cultural Heritage Without Borders. The conference focused on the future of intangible cultural heritage in the current context of its gradual exploitation through imitations and political messages. The participants responded by emphasizing the need to increase the number of intangible cultural heritage (ICH) elements included in schools, to strengthen education dedicated to cultural heritage elements, and to involve craftsmen, specialists, as well as classroom teachers. Furthermore, the conference participants highlighted the importance of using new media technologies to facilitate broader public access to information about cultural heritage elements. The conference opened with the launch of the project Facilitating Access to the Intangible Cultural Heritage of Romania and the Republic of Moldova: The Interactive Map of Birth Customs (AccessChRoM).

Social Work International Conference (SWIC) 2025 “Social work in a shifting world: responding to transforming realities and their ripple effects”, The 9th Edition, Bucharest, October 29th-31st, 2025

Bianca-Daniela Parepeanu — 2025-12-31

The 9th edition of the Social Work International Conference (SWIC) took place in Bucharest between the 29th and 31st of October 2025. Organized by the Department of Social Work, Faculty of Sociology and Social Work, University of Bucharest, in partnership with the Association of Schools of Social Work in Romania (ASSWR), the conference addressed the theme “Social work in a shifting world: responding to transforming realities and their ripple effects”. The event brought together academics, practitioners, and students from Romania and abroad to discuss social work responses to contemporary global and local challenges, such as digitalization, inequalities, professional resilience and social transformations.

SECULARIZAREA ȘI CAMUFLĂRILE SACRULUI. Editura Polirom, Iași, 2025. Nicu Gavriluță

Radu Carp — 2025-12-31

The new book Secularizarea și camuflările sacrului [Secularization and the Camouflages of the Sacred] of Nicu Gavriluță is a very valuable contribution to the study of secularization in Romania, from an author that described so far vey well how the sacred work in post-modern societies. The merit of this volume is that, by describing two faces of the same social aspect, secularization and the manifestation of the sacred, the author succeded to show the interactions between them that cannot be seen without a deep knowledge of their mechanisms.

VULNERABILITATE ŞI APARTENENŢĂ: DIAGNOZĂ ŞI INTERVENŢIE LA NIVELUL UNOR PROBLEME SOCIALE CONTEMPORANE. Pro Universitaria, Bucureşti, 2025. Carmen-Marcela Ciornei, Petru-Vasile Gafiuc, Viorica-Cristina Cormoş, Liliana Elisabeta Orza

Sergiu-Lucian Raiu — 2025-12-31

The volume is interdisciplinary in nature and analyzes social vulnerability as a result of the breakdown of ties between individuals and communities, proposing systemic counseling as a strategy for rebuilding a sense of belonging. Three major current issues are addressed in depth: NEET youth, seasonal migration, and human trafficking, highlighting both structural causes and practical solutions, including the role of institutional partnerships and the Church. The work stands out for its balance between theoretical foundations and concrete applications, offering a model of social intervention adapted to the Romanian context. The volume is presented as a founding step for the development of an academic direction in social work, highlighting the importance of professional adaptability to vulnerabilities.

REVITALIZAREA CĂMĂȘII FEMEIEȘTI DE SĂRBĂTOARE: DE LA TRADIȚIONAL LA ESTETIC. Editura ProUniversitaria, București, 2025. Mădălina Căpraru

Adina Hulubaș — 2025-12-31

Lesia Voroniuk, student at the National University of Cernăuți did not suspect in 2006, that her idea of declaring a national day of the Ukrainian traditional blouse, called vyshivanka, will inspire in a neighboring country, an even greater, universal day. Registered at OSIM in 2013, the “universal day of ia” even received a law: no. 184 from 2022. This sudden boost in publicity, made by enthusiasts of the traditional blouse and not by ethnographers had a series of secondary effects in the last decade: the rise in the number of textile imports with ethnic motives, from India, Turkye and China, the festivalization of the day 24 of June in the detriment of the day of Sânziene and the Christian one, the emergence of a series of groups called “șezători” with the purpose of reproducing the traditional Romanian blouse, with a more faithful or free reproduction of the Romanian blouse, and lastly, the standardization of the traditional clothing terminology. Now, we only rarely hear, from traditional craftsmen from ethnographic sites, of “cămașă”, “chimeșă” or “ciupag”, all artisanal blouses (35) with traditional inspiration are presented and sold a “ie”. The doctoral paper of Mădălina Căpraru, published at ProUniversitaria, distinguishes from the choir of laudatory books dedicated to this phenomenon, published in the recently, and offers a rigorous analysis both from a diachronic and synchronic perspective.

A life in the mirror of destiny: Constantin Schifirneț and the trajectory of a Romanian epoch Destin și o viață de om [Destiny and a Life of a Man]. West University of Timișoara Press, Timișoara, 2024. Constantin Schifirneț

Sebastian Fitzek — 2025-12-31

This review argues that Destiny and a Life of a Man transforms Constantin Schifirneț’s personal trajectory into a sociological lens on Romania from late communism through transition. The volume shows how the village functions as a formative matrix, how family labour cultivates habitus, and how schooling anchors an ethic of rigour. It clarifies the scientific mandate and constraints of CCPT, situates a corpus of “Research Reports” within applied social diagnosis, and traces the author’s subsequent academic vocation. Micro-histories – 1968, the 1977 earthquake, Chernobyl – serve as empirical vignettes of everyday life under pressure. Stylistically, the prose balances literary clarity and analytical precision. The result is an intellectual memoir that doubles as a methodological lesson in assembling memory, documents, and field notes as evidence for Romanian sociology.

SOCIOLOGIA ELITELOR. ABORDĂRI CLASICE ȘI CONTEMPORANE. INSTITUTUL EUROPEAN, IAȘI, 2023. CIPRIAN IFTIMOAEI

Daniel Șandru — 2025-12-31

The volume Sociologia elitelor. Abordări clasice și contemporane (The Sociology of Elites. Classical and Contemporary Approaches) fits into a relatively recent series of studies within the Romanian social sciences dedicated to examining elites in the context of transition, democratic consolidation, and good governance. The author brings together both classical and contemporary approaches to the study of elites, organizing them into four major schools of sociopolitical thought: the classical sociology of elites, the radical (critical) sociology of elites, elite pluralism, and democratic elitism. Ciprian Iftimoaei’s work makes an important contribution not only by systematizing elitist theories but also by integrating them into a coherent sociological framework applied to the Romanian post-communist context. The author succeeds in creating a dialogue between Western paradigms of elite studies and the Romanian sociological tradition, building a bridge between theoretical reflection and empirical analysis of contemporary political elites. Moreover, his approach is distinguished by the ability to operationalize key concepts such as power, domination, circulation, and elite consensus, thus providing a sociological model that can also be applied to other areas of political analysis. Conceptual rigor, balance between description and interpretation, and the combined use of qualitative and quantitative methods make this volume a methodological benchmark for elite research in Romania.

SOCIAL COHESION IN EUROPEAN SOCIETIES. CONCEPTUALISING AND ASSESSING TOGETHERNESS. Routledge, London and New York, 2023. Aruqaj Bujar

Bianca Mădălina Popa — 2025-12-31

Starting from the premise that the current problems facing Europe threaten social cohesion, the author seeks to answer a question that has preoccupied many classical thinkers and repeatedly resurfaces during periods of profound transformations: what holds society together? In the context of growing social inequalities, migration, demographic shifts, and axiological changes – amplified by recent events such as the COVID-19 pandemic and the war in Ukraine – Aruqaj Bujar provides a clear picture of social cohesion within and between European societies.