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The article attempts to examine the main topics in the sociological study of housing from the end of the Second World War to the 1980s & distinguishes the following five: (1) housing systems & housing policy, (2) the relationship between social stratification & housing differentiation, (3) the relationship between the family & housing, (4) the relationship between housing & neighbourhoods, & (5) housing & architecture as components of culture. During this period the sociological study of housing was strongly influenced by the changes occurring in the housing situation. The post-war housing shortage in Europe & the state's heavy involvement in tackling this problem, along with the rapid rise in the importance of social housing, led to an emphasis on the study of housing systems, housing policy, the methodology of quantitatively measuring housing needs, & the role of the state in the housing sphere, with a heavy stress on the economic dimension of housing issues. A shift to qualitative research on housing, i.e. studying the relationship between the family & housing & the housing needs of the elderly & new families, occurred as the housing shortage declined. Culturally oriented housing research followed, as a response to the search for new identities & for genius loci. As housing has become commodified in Europe & social housing has almost disappeared over the past twenty-five years, there has been revival of the study of the social consequences of narrowly defined economic concepts of housing policy.

"In recent years, sociology in Britain -and in national contexts influenced by British sociology- has been diagnosed by various parties as suffering from a wide range of ailments. These forms of selfcriticism become ever more acute in terms of their potential effects as huge transformations in university funding regimes are brought to bear on the social sciences. But none of these critiques engages satisfactorily with what is a much more foundational and serious set of problems, namely the very nature of sociology itself as a historically-situated form of knowledge production. Sociology claims to know the world around it, but in Britain today much sociology seriously fails in this regard, because it operates with radically curtailed understandings of the long-term historical forces which made the social conditions it purports to analyse. A sophisticated understanding of the contemporary world is made possible only by an equally sophisticated understanding of very long-term historical processes, precisely the sort of vision that mainstream British sociology has lacked for at least the last two decades. This paper identifies the reasons for the development of this situation and the consequences it has for the nature of sociology's knowledge production, for its self-understanding, for its claims to comprehend the contemporary world, and for its apparent social "usefulness". A markedly more selfaware and historically-sensitive sociology is proposed as the answer to the pressing question of what aspects of sociology should be defended in the turbulent context of British higher education today." (author's abstract)

Based on a systematic study of Polish sociological literature produced in the period stretching between the elevation of Wladyslaw Gomulka to the post of the Party's first secretary in October 1956 to the first free elections in Poland in June 1989, the author of this article offers an account of the main dilemmas & the varieties of pluralism in Polish sociology during the state socialist era. The author claims that, with the exception of the Stalinist period, Polish sociologists always occupied diverse positions on 'government' & 'society', but this diversity yielded to change in response to a particular time. Generally, in 1956-1989 Polish sociology was something unique in comparison with sociology in other so-called people's democracies, as it had a considerably high status in the country & in the world, including the West. The author argues that Polish sociology did not have to undergo a revolution in 1989 & make the move from Marxist to bourgeois sociology, as since 1956 (or even earlier, since 1945) it had been undergoing continuous change & constant reform (in theoretical domain & concerning its division into sub-disciplines) & maintained a consistent level of diversity in various respects.

The article describes the role of the Chicago School of Sociology in the development of empirical social research. It traces the increase in the significance of the education of doctoral students on American universities at the turn of the 20th century, and the role of philanthropic foundations. It focuses on the contribution of prominent individuals: W. R. Harper, rector and founder of the University of Chicago, obtained top figures and founded journals in some major fields. A. W. Small was the first chair of the Department of Sociology and Social Anthropology, founded the American Journal of Sociology and wrote the first two textbooks of sociology. W. I. Thomas was responsible for the famous study Polish Peasant in Europe and America and for the theoretical foundations passed on to his successors. In 1916 R. E. Park published a project in which Chicago became a social laboratory and he inspired and was an advisor for numerous doctoral projects that later were published as sociological monographs. The methodologist E. W. Burgess organized empirical research for the school of doctoral studies that emerged in Chicago and successfully worked there for twenty years. It is beyond the scope of one article to discuss also the monographs by doctoral students at the University of Chicago. Paper examines in detail only the monograph by Park, Burgess and McKenzie titled The City.

The article offers a brief account of the history of Hungarian sociology during four decades of communist rule in Hungary. Beginning with the brief existence of the first department of sociology in Hungary (the 'Szalai Institute', 1946-1948) the author describes the field in the 1950s, when for political reasons sociology was marginalized to the point of extinction. The revival of sociology in Hungary during the 1960s is devoted considerable attention from an institutional, a personal & a doctrinal point of view. The author analyses the main branches of study in Hungarian sociology at the time, including critical sociology & the study of social stratification, which overcame the rigidity of official Marxist-Leninist doctrine. She characterizes the last two decades of state socialism in Hungary as a period when sociology both suffered from increased political repression (stronger in the early 1970s than later) & at the same time became more & more professional. She argues that a determining feature of the history of Hungarian sociology between 1948 & 1989 was its strong connection to politics. However, sociology & politics had a mutual influence on one another during this period, as sociology also had an impact on the way Communist Party officials approached the structure of Hungarian society. In the process, sociology evolved & was professionalized, enabling its existence as an autonomous discipline today.

The survey covers the period of a gradual decline from the record levels of hospitalization at the end of February and a decline in new daily cases. During the fieldwork a the curfew rules became stricter and forbade a walk in nature after 8 pm. Travel abroad for holidays was also forbidden. Fears of the disease, agreement and compliance with the introduced quarantine measures, changes of behavior at times of the epidemic and the approval of government strategies are surveyed. Several questions are dedicated to vaccination plans and factors influencing the decision to not/vaccinate. Surveyed are also fears of loosing work and changes in the income situation and situation in the public health care system during the pandemic. This is the eight survey from the "How are you, Slovakia?" survey series.

The survey covers the third month after the first diagnosed case of COVID-19 in Slovakia on March 6 2020. It was fielded in a period of gradual lifting of quarantine measures. The survey monitors fears of the disease, agreement and compliance with the introduced quarantine measures, changes of behavior at times of the epidemic and the approval of government strategies, state of mental health after extended quarantine and environmental topics. Surveyed are also fears of loosing work, changes in the income situation and relations within households. The survey also includes questions from Values in Crisis Austria survey which was fielded in the same time in Austria. This is the third survey from the "How are you, Slovakia?" survey series.

The survey covers the second month of quarantine measures after the first diagnosed case of COVID-19 in Slovakia on March 6 2020. A week before the fieldwork, the measure limiting movements between administrative regions (SK: okres) of Slovakia during Easter holidays – the most limiting quarantine measure so far - has been lifted. The survey monitors fears of the disease, the expected duration of the epidemic, agreement and compliance with the introduced quarantine measures, changes of behavior at times of the epidemic and the approval of restrictions introduced by the government limiting personal freedoms. Surveyed are also fears of loosing work, changes in the income situation and changes in leisure time activities and relations within households. The survey also includes questions from the Austrian Corona Panel Project which was fielded in the same time in Austria. This is the second survey from the "How are you, Slovakia?" survey series.