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This guide provides information for resources on Sociology, ranging from books and journals to electronic databases and audio-visual material. It supports the study of Politics and Sociology, Sociology of Childhood, Sociology of Education, and more.
In this guide you will find information about searching and making the most of library resources and how to access further training on offer at UCL. Please use the menu to see how the library can support your learning and research in Sociology.
You may also find these subject guides useful to you:
A large number of contemporary resources on sociology can be found online, as e-books or e-journals. Print collections which hold sociology can be found in the IOE, SSEES and Main Libraries, but you can use Click and Collect to pick them up from any other UCL library.
UCL Library Services has many subject-specific databases that will help you find useful resources. Two key databases for Sociology are below.
How a new "woke" elite uses the language of social justice to gain more power and status--without helping the marginalized and disadvantaged. Musa al-Gharbi explores the rise of a new elite--the symbolic capitalists. In education, media, nonprofits, and beyond, members of this elite work primarily with words, ideas, images, and data, and are very likely to identify as allies of antiracist, feminist, LGBTQ, and other progressive causes. Their dominant ideology is "wokeness" and they actively benefit from and perpetuate the inequalities they decry. Indeed, their egalitarian credentials help them gain more power and status, often at the expense of the marginalized and disadvantaged. This book details how the language of social justice is increasingly used to justify this elite--and to portray the losers in the knowledge economy as deserving their lot because they think or say the "wrong" things about race, gender, and sexuality.
The importance of play for healthy development is undeniable. Aspects of play have been linked to the development of social skills, health and fitness, motivation, curiosity, innovation, imagination, and problem solving. However, opportunities to play and quality of play facilities in schools, after-school programs, childcare centers, community parks, and museums are not equitable by race, socio-economic status, and ability. And racial profiling, immigrant status, illness, and incarceration interfere with child's play. The book describes disparities in play opportunities in childcare, schools, and communities; describes pre-school, elementary, high school, and university programs that use play to liberate, teach, and build community; and discusses ways to ameliorate inequities through research and advocacy.
In Against Inequality, the authors offer a theoretical and political proposal for social emancipation, seen as an opportunity to build conditions of equality in contexts of freedom, not only for ethical but essentially political foundations. To achieve this, the authors confront inequality in two ways: as a social phenomenon (and, therefore, historically situated and structured) and through critical reflection on the concepts, categories, indicators and frameworks of its understanding. In this sense, they propose a critical reflection of the ways in which it has been thought theoretically and politically at various times, with special reference to the way in which it has been conceived in modern, capitalist society.
How do we define patriotism in a diverse society? What divides us and what brings us together? Why do we feel uncomfortable celebrating our country's history? How to be a Patriot offers a new way of understanding our collective identity in a country wracked by division and brimming with markers of selfhood - faith, race, gender, age, sexuality. Sunder Katwala's timely and clear-eyed analysis seeks to navigate the many crises of this increasingly disunited kingdom: extremism and integration after 7/7; fear of immigration and the deep divides of Brexit; the resurgence of online racism; and the debate over our cultural heritage. Equipped with a nuanced understanding of the subject and a wealth of supporting data, he sets out to foster a more open and tolerant society: one that welcomes alternative ideas and cultures rather than shutting them out.
In this accessible guide for activists, scholar Lisa Mueller translates cutting-edge empirical research on effective protest to show how to make movements really matter We are in the middle of a historic swell of activism taking place throughout the world. From Occupy Wall Street and the Arab Spring, to pro-democracy uprisings in China, Black Lives Matter, the Women's March on Washington, and more recent pro-choice protests; folks everywhere are gathering to demand a more just world. Yet despite social engagement being at record highs, there is a divide between the activist community and the scientists who study it. In The New Science of Social Change, Mueller highlights what really works when it comes to group advocacy, to place proven tools in the hands of activists on the ground--in the U.S. and abroad.
Genderqueer and nonbinary people of color often experience increased marginalization, belonging to an ethnic group that seldom recognizes their gender identity and a queer community that subscribes to white norms. Yet for this very reason, they have a lot to teach about how racial, sexual, and gender identities intersect. Their experiences of challenging social boundaries demonstrate how queer communities can become more inclusive and how the recognition of nonbinary genders can be an anti-racist practice. My Race is My Gender is the first anthology by nonbinary writers of color to include photography and visual portraits, centering their everyday experiences of negotiating intersectional identities. Bringing together Black, Indigenous, Latine, and Asian perspectives, its six contributors present an intergenerational look at what it means to belong to marginalized queer communities in the U.S. and feel solidarity with a global majority at the same time.
The Oxford Handbook of Sociology for Social Justice calls on sociologists to be first and foremost activists who apply sociological skills and imaginations to the work of organizing, mobilizing, educating, and envisioning radical social change. As millions of people are organizing and mobilizing in new and unparalleled ways to challenge the global powers responsible for political repression, exploitation and poverty, social devastation and ecological destruction, authoritarian movements are growing just as rapidly. This transformative political and social moment calls for the boldest forms of praxis from radical scholar-activists. This Handbook includes theoretical framing pieces on the decolonization of sociology and its demand for an alternative approach to social science developing from grassroots engagements to challenge powers of exploitation and oppression. This collection also provides critical case studies on sociological work committed to progressive policy initiatives and a variety of local and global organizing efforts from the classroom to industrial labor unions, from farmers and farm workers to musicians and journalists, and other public intellectual efforts.
Empire's daughters traces the interconnected histories of girlhood, whiteness, and British colonialism in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries through the study of the Girls' Friendly Society. The society functioned as both a youth organisation and emigration society, making it especially valuable in examining girls' multifaceted participation with the empire. The book charts the emergence of the organisation during the late Victorian era through its height in the first decade of the twentieth century to its decline in the interwar years. Employing a multi-sited approach and using a range of sources, including correspondences, newsletters, and scrapbooks, the book uncovers the ways in which girls participated in the empire as migrants, settlers, laborers, and creators of colonial knowledge and also how they resisted these prescribed roles and challenged systems of colonial power.
Are we confronting a new culture that is global, online, individualistic and hedonistic? Or is our existing concept of culture in crisis, as explicit, normative systems replace implicit, socially anchored values and representations? Olivier Roy's new book explores the extension of individual political and sexual freedoms from the 1960s, leading us to today's fractures. For Roy, twentieth-century youth culture disconnected traditional political protest from class, region or ethnicity, fashioning a generational, temporary identity premised on repudiation rather than inheritance of any shared past or values. Expanded and diversified by neoliberalism and the internet, youth culture now transcends generations - an individualised, ersatz culture open to everyone. When a shared culture no longer exists, everything becomes an explicit code of how to speak and act. Increased reference to 'identity' in political discourse, on both left and right, is symptomatic of the failure to confront a deeper crisis of culture. Identities are now defined by traits (race, sexuality, diet) that fragment social cohesion, creating sub-cultures seeking safe spaces: universities for the left, gated communities and hard borders for the right. Our only option, Roy argues, is to restore social bonds at the grassroots or citizenship level, rather than building communities of affinity online.
Passionate, powerful and thought-provoking, in The Hidden Face of Eve, leading feminist writer Nawal El Saadawi provides a shocking account of the oppression of women in the Arab world. Inspired by her experiences working as a doctor in rural Egypt and her life as an activist for women's rights, she charts the injustices and violence faced by women in the society she grew up in, from legal inequality to honour killings and sexual violence, including female genital mutilation. Examining the historical roots of this oppression, she tackles the controversial topic of women and Islam, arguing that customs such as veiling and polygamy are contradictory to the fundamental teachings of the Muslim faith or any other. As necessary now as when it was first published, The Hidden Face of Eve is a classic of Arab feminist writing.
