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Sociology

Welcome to the Sociology subject guide

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:

Subject Collections

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.

Latest titles added to the collection

The Making of a Left-Behind Class : educational stratification, meritocracy and widening participation

Despite the high aspirations of young people from disadvantaged communities, they face barriers that are frustrating the realisation of their educational ambitions. This book analyses the 'left-behind' phenomenon and shows how education has become the new divide in Western society. It explains how denied educational equality and frustrated opportunity are undermining social cohesion and what we can do about it.

Handbook of Social Justice in the Global South

This timely Handbook explores social justice in the Global South in an era of planetary crisis and shifting global dynamics. Presenting the Global South as a space of belonging and resistance to the hegemony of global capitalism, it identifies how to reimagine transformative futures for a just world. Adopting an interdisciplinary perspective, expert contributors examine the many dimensions of justice.

Researching Society and Culture

Just starting out with social research? With contributions from experts across the social sciences, this book equips you with the tools for successfully investigating society and culture. It shows you how to prepare for research, generate and analyse data, and present your findings. Balancing theory with practice, it covers foundational concepts in methods and methodology alongside contemporary developments.

The Social Consequences of Climate Change: debates in research and policy

Tackling a global and seismic problem such as climate change requires an equally extensive approach. Investigating current scientific knowledge about climate change in public and policy discussions, as well as the connections between social, economic, and political discourse, The Social Consequences of Climate Change takes a take a multifaceted approach to one of the biggest challenges of our time. Understanding the role of climate conditions in all aspects of human society - where we live, how we build, how we move - chapters wield relevant approaches and techniques from across disciplines to reframe issues that are essential to improving sustainability and capturing innovative solutions to the climate problem.

Class and Social Background Discrimination in the Modern Workplace: Mapping inequality in the digital age

This book exposes how inequalities based on class and social background arise from employment practices in the digital age. It considers instances where social media is used in recruitment to infiltrate private lives and hide job advertisements based on locality; where algorithms assess socio-economic data to filter candidates; where human interviewers are replaced by artificial intelligence with design that disadvantages users of classed language; and where already vulnerable groups become victims of digitalisation and remote work.

Rethinking Sport and Society

This pioneering book presents a rethinking of sport and society informed by a diverse array of cultural viewpoints and life experiences. Elizabeth C.J. Pike conducts interviews with global thought leaders from a wide range of continents and backgrounds, delving into key social issues and their evolving relationships with sport. Set against the backdrop of the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals, rapid technological advances, and significant geopolitical events, chapters showcase a novel approach to understanding sport and society.

An Invitation to Social Theory

Social theory is a crucial resource for the social sciences. It provides rich insights into how human beings think and act and how contemporary social life is constructed. But often the key ideas of social theorists are expressed in highly technical and difficult language that can hide more than it reveals. The new edition of this popular book continues to cut to the core of what social theory is about.

The Pedagogy of Radical Change: social movements, resistance and alternative futures in higher education and society

This book discusses and compares how social movements in Brazil, Chile, Greece and England are beacons of alternative politics. It focuses on the potential of these movements to radically transform higher education and society. It explores how social movements create new forms of resistance to the ubiquity of global capitalism and new forms of thinking, acting and being in the world that are not based on exploitation and profit.

Selling Social Justice : why the rich love antiracism

Americans have been sold a version of social justice that fails to deliver. The national racial reckoning that began in 2020 promised to radically restructure American society from the bottom up. But five years on, it has mainly served to strengthen the ruling class and deliver the rich an opportunity to rehabilitate a profoundly unequal economic order precisely at a moment when the stability of the system and the public's trust in it are drastically deteriorating.

The Forgotten Realities of Men : critical reflections on masculinity in contemporary society

The Forgotten Realities of Men explores the complexities of contemporary masculinity, providing an empathetic look at men's lives while rejecting the politics of anger and resentment that often pit their challenges against those of women. Through in-depth research, ethnographic analysis, and interviews with men themselves, the contributors shed light on aspects of men's lived experiences that tend to be downplayed or overlooked: childhood sexual abuse, family violence, teenaged fatherhood, infertility, emotional expression, isolation and depression, cultures of fear in sports, and controversial online communities.