It has an empirical focus on social research, both qualitatively and quantitatively, often in the tradition of Max Weber's "Verstehende Soziologie" (Interpretive Sociology).
The journal's roots go back to the Kölner Vierteljahreshefte für Sozialwissenschaften (Cologne Quarterly of Social Sciences), founded in 1921 by the German sociologist Leopold von Wiese.
[2] Other editors of the Kölner Vierteljahrshefte für Soziologie included Theodor Brauer, Christian Eckert, and Hugo Lindemann.
[3] After World War II it was again von Wiese who refounded the journal as ”Kölner Zeitschrift für Soziologie” in 1948.
Editors of the journal are Cornelia Kristen (Otto-Friedrich-Universität Bamberg), Thomas Schwinn (Ruprecht-Karls-Universität Heidelberg) and Michael Wagner (Universität zu Köln).