Students from the Department of Sociology explored urban history, youth anxieties, and changes in university life from a sociological perspective and won the grand prize and excellence awards at an academic presentation competition.

The Department of Sociology at Jeonbuk National University (JBNU) announced that the Kim Min-seo and Jang Eun-seong team won the grand prize at the '2027 ISA World Congress of Sociology Academic Supporters' presentation competition organized by the Korean Sociological Association. The Bae Sol and Seon Hwa-pyeong team and the Kim Se-jeong and Kim Yong-man team each received excellence awards. Kim Yong-man is an English Language & Literature major who is double-majoring in Sociology.

The grand prize team, Kim Min-seo and Jang Eun-seong, presented "How We Remember Gwangju," illuminating the significance of the 2027 World Congress of Sociology to be held in Gwangju through the city's historical traces and a sociological lens. They examined the historical scars remaining on the former Jeonnam Provincial Government Office and Jeonil Building 245, cheering culture at baseball stadiums, the art sites of the Cultural Center and the Biennale, and everyday life in Chungjang-ro and the alleys of Dongmyeong-dong, and presented the values of democracy and collective solidarity embedded throughout Gwangju in a card-news series.

The excellence award team of Bae Sol and Seon Hwa-pyeong presented "The Effect of Perceptions of AI Labor Structures on the Behavioral Patterns of the Young Generation: Focusing on the Mediating Effect of Redicore." They used statistical analysis to examine the psychological process by which AI-induced employment insecurity, via the pressure to "always be prepared," leads young people to engage in excessive self-improvement.

The Kim Se-jeong and Kim Yong-man team received an excellence award for "The Impact of the Major Self-Selection System on JBNU Entrants: Focusing on Sense of Belonging." Through in-depth interviews, they identified departmental hierarchies, a lack of belonging, and difficulties forming relationships experienced by incoming students after the introduction of the non-major system, and proposed improvement measures.

The awards are significant because the students developed questions they discovered in everyday life and social phenomena into scholarly outcomes through statistical analysis, in-depth interviews, card-news, and other diverse methods.

The awardees said, "We were able to achieve good results because we delved into our generation's anxieties and the real concerns on campus from our own perspective," adding, "The Department of Sociology professors who supported our freedom to ask questions and pursue inquiry, and the department's strong encouragement, were a great source of strength."