Department of Sociology
Relevant Links
Sociology in Oxford is concerned with real-world issues with policy relevance, such as social inequality, organised crime, the social basis of political conflict and mobilization, and changes in family relationships and gender roles. Our research is empirical, analytical, and comparative in nature, reaching far beyond British society, to encompass systematic cross-national comparison as well as the detailed study of Asian, European, Latin American and North American societies.
Statistical analysis of large-scale survey data is one of our core strengths. And we are at the forefront in developing new research methods, including the analysis of complex social networks and computer simulation. The Centre for Experimental Social Sciences (at Nuffield College) provides infrastructure for designing and conducting social experiments. Our expertise also encompasses ethnographic studies and archival/historical research. In addition, Oxford sociologists lead the development of analytical sociology which identifies generalizable social mechanisms and elucidates the logic of individual action.
Series associated with Department of Sociology
Department of Sociology Podcasts
Podcasts From The Extra-legal Governance Institute (Exlegi)
| # | Episode Title | Description | People | Date | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 61 | Cees van der Eijk on “Contextualising Research Methods | Cees van der Eijk gives a talk for the Sociology seminar series. | Cees van der Eijk | 04 Jun 2015 | |
| 60 | Chris Zorn on ’Big Data' in the Social Sciences | Chris Zorn discusses teaching quantitative methods focussing on (a) integrating contemporary data science approaches into undergraduate instruction, and (b) using "big data" examples to generate and maintain students' interest. | Chris Zorn | 04 Jun 2015 | |
| 59 | Creative Commons | John Fox on R software for teaching quantitative methods to social science students | John Fox discusses his experiences and views of what works well when teaching quantitative methods to undergraduate social science students, especially focusing on the choice of software with a demonstration of R and R Commander. | John Fox | 28 Jul 2014 |
| 58 | Robert Johns on SPSS and Stata software for teaching quantitative methods to social science students | Robert Johns (Essex University) discusses his experiences and views of what works well when teaching quantitative methods to undergraduate social science students, focusing on comparing the use of SPSS and Stata. | Robert Johns | 28 Jul 2014 | |
| 57 | Wendy Olsen on teaching quantitative methods to social science students | Wendy Olsen discusses her experiences and views of what works well when teaching quantitative methods to undergraduate social science students, especially those in Sociology and Social Policy. | Wendy Olsen | 28 Jan 2014 | |
| 56 | Robert Andersen on teaching quantitative methods to social science students | Robert Andersen discusses his experiences and views of what works well when teaching quantitative methods to undergraduate social science students, especially those in Sociology and Social Policy. | Robert Andersen | 28 Jan 2014 | |
| 55 | Creative Commons | Sean Carey on teaching quantitative methods to social science students | Sean Carey (University of Mannheim, Germany) discusses his experiences and views of what works well when teaching quantitative methods to undergraduate social science students. | Sean Carey | 18 Nov 2013 |
| 54 | Andrew Gelman on teaching quantitative methods to social science students | Andrew Gelman (Columbia University, NYC) discusses his experiences and views of what works well when teaching quantitative methods to undergraduate social science students. | Andrew Gelman | 18 Nov 2013 | |
| 53 | Intergenerational relationships: Does grandparental childcare pay off? | Intergenerational relationships: Does grandparental childcare pay off? | Valeria Bordone | 21 Oct 2013 | |
| 52 | Creative Commons | Andy Field on teaching quantitative methods to social science students | Andy Field (University of Sussex) discusses his experiences and views of what works well when teaching quantitative methods to undergraduate social science students, especially with mixed ability and low motivation students. | Andy Field | 09 Sep 2013 |
| 51 | Creative Commons | Anti-politics in action: Do European protesters hate formal politics more than the general public? | Dr Clare Saunders (University of Exeter) presents her multi-staged surveys on European protests. | Clare Saunders | 28 Aug 2013 |
| 50 | Creative Commons | The Endtimes of Human Rights | Are we coming to an end of the human rights as a social science issue? Talk by Dr Stephen Hopgood (SOAS). | Stephen Hopgood | 28 Aug 2013 |
| 49 | Creative Commons | Manfred te Grotenhuis on teaching quantitative methods to social science students | Manfred te Grotenhuis (Radboud University Nijmegen) discusses his experiences and views of what works well when teaching quantitative methods to undergraduate social science students, especially with mixed ability and low motivation students. | Manfred te Grotenhuis | 27 Aug 2013 |
| 48 | Creative Commons | Updating what we know about intergenerational time and money transfers in the U.S. | Prof. Bianchi (UCLA) presents a new survey component of American Time Use Data (ATUS) that investigates intergenerational time and money transfers. | Suzanne Bianchi | 17 May 2013 |
| 47 | Creative Commons | Identifying age, period and cohort effects: Are the new methods really better? | Prof. Voas (University of Essex) presents new quantitative methods to analyse secularisation - religiosity. | David Voas | 17 May 2013 |
| 46 | Creative Commons | Is there 'White Flight?' in England? Why Whites in Homogeneous English Wards Are More Opposed to Immigration | Prof. Kaufmann (Birbeck College) investigates whether Whites in homogeneous English neighbourhoods oppose immigration more. | Eric Kaufmann | 17 May 2013 |
| 45 | Creative Commons | Solving the Mona Lisa Smile, and Other Developments in Micro-empirical sociology | Seminar on what micro-sociology could tell us about predicting violence. | Randall Collins | 15 Apr 2013 |
| 44 | Creative Commons | A cooperative species: Human reciprocity and its evolution (Astor Visiting Lecture) | Are humans inherently selfish? Is there really an essential human nature? How do we contend about the selfish gene in this day and age? What do we make of altruism against the selfish gene? With Professor Sam Bowles (Arthur Speigel Research Professor). | Sam Bowles | 13 Mar 2013 |
| 43 | Changing Relationships: The Role of Cohabitation | A study on how cohabitation affects marriage and re-marriage patterns in the UK. With Dr. Tiziano Nazio (University of Turin). | Tiziano Nazio | 13 Mar 2013 | |
| 42 | Creative Commons | Issue Attention and Demobilization: How Social Movements shape the Policy Agenda when Issues are in Decline | Looking at how social movements shape the policy making agenda in the US when the issues the social movements are arguing for are in decline in the main policy making agenda. | David Pettinicchio | 13 Mar 2013 |
| 41 | Creative Commons | Understanding Conspiracy Theories Sociologically: Anti-Semitic Rhetoric about Dönmes (Converts) in Turkey | Research investigating the convert-Jews in Turkey with materials investigating historical accounts, popular conspiracy theory books and interviews with the authors of such books. | Turkay Nefes | 13 Mar 2013 |
| 40 | Creative Commons | Laura Stoker on teaching quantitative methods to social science students | Laura Stoker discusses her experiences and views of what works well when teaching quantitative methods to undergraduate social science students. | Laura Stoker | 11 Feb 2013 |
| 39 | Creative Commons | Income inequality and personality- Are more equal US States more agreeable? | How does inequality influence personal agreeableness? | Robert de Vries | 30 Jan 2013 |
| 38 | Creative Commons | Does Shame Always Go Hand in Hand With Poverty? Answers From an International Comparative Study | Is shame an automatic consequence of poverty? Can one be poor without being ashamed of it? A lecture from Professor Robert Walker, University of Oxford. | Robert Walker | 30 Jan 2013 |
| 37 | Crimes in (social) Contexts: The Influence of Police Legitimacy on Offending Behaviour | How can we understand the influence of police on criminal behaviour? | Ben Bradford | 30 Jan 2013 | |
| 36 | Alan Agresti on teaching quantitative methods to social science students | Alan Agresti discusses his experiences and views of what works well when teaching quantitative methods to undergraduate social science students. | Alan Agresti | 24 Dec 2012 | |
| 35 | Creative Commons | Paul Kellstedt on teaching quantitative methods to political science students | Paul Kellstedt discusses his experiences and views of what works well when teaching quantitative methods to undergraduate political science students and other social scientists. | Paul Kellstedt | 03 Dec 2012 |
| 34 | Creative Commons | Negative Intergroup Contact: Causes and Consequences | Dr. Eva Jaspers (University of Utrecht) on negative intergroup contact and how it can help us understand persistent ethnic bias. | Eva Jaspers | 23 Oct 2012 |
| 33 | Creative Commons | The Combat Soldier: Infantry Tactics and Cohesion in the Twentieth and Twenty-first Centuries | Professor Anthony King (University of Exeter) looks at the modern infantry tactics and cohesion, with a perspective on conscripted vs. professional armies. | Anthony King | 22 Oct 2012 |
| 32 | Creative Commons | Bill Jacoby on teaching quantitative methods to political science students | Bill Jacoby discusses his experiences and views of what works well when teaching quantitative methods to undergraduate political science students and other social scientists. | William G Jacoby | 18 Oct 2012 |
| 31 | Creative Commons | Political Epistemics: The Secret Police, the Opposition, and the End of East German Socialism | Sociological analysis of the End of East German Socialism. | Andreas Glaeser | 07 Jul 2012 |
| 30 | Creative Commons | The Tea Party and the Remaking of Republican Conservatism | Prof. Skocpol presents a detailed analysis of the rising Tea Party in the US and how Tea Party followers are different from Democrats. | Theda Skocpol | 07 Jul 2012 |
| 29 | Creative Commons | Focal points, endogenous processes and exogenous shocks in the autism epidemic | Ka Yuet Liu (Columbia University) presents an insightful inquiry into autism epidemic. | Ka Yuet Liu | 09 Mar 2012 |
| 28 | Childbearing across partnerships | How does childbearing work across various types of partnerships, including but not limited to cohabitation, marriage, re-married couples. | Elizabeth Thomson | 09 Mar 2012 | |
| 27 | Creative Commons | Social mobility, marriage and societal openness in Great Britain, 1949-2006 | How can we understand the social mobility patterns through marriage in Great Britain? A historical perspective. | Colin Mills | 09 Mar 2012 |
| 26 | Creative Commons | Structural and exchange mobility in Britain and the USA: 1870-1970 | Historical approach on social mobility in Britain and the US. | Mike Hout | 20 Feb 2012 |
| 25 | Determinants and consequences of the recognition of education among immigrants in Germany | Irena Kogan (University of Mannheim) discusses the determinants of immigrants' investments in official recognition of their education, and the labour market effects of this recognition in Germany. | Irena Kogan | 20 Feb 2012 | |
| 24 | Creative Commons | Modeling individual-level heterogeneity in racial residential segregation | Yu Xie (University of Michigan, Ann Arbor) explains how racial residential segregation works and how it is best modelled sociologically. | Yu Xie | 30 Jan 2012 |
| 23 | Creative Commons | Rethinking Social Capital | Dr. Small (University of Chicago) presents his mixed-methods work on child care centers and their roles on social capital building for mothers. | Mario Small | 06 Dec 2011 |
| 22 | Creative Commons | A new method for determining why length of life is more unequal in some societies than in others | Dr Glenn Firebaugh (Penn State University) presents the reasons behind life expectancy in a comparative perspective. | Glenn Firebaugh | 06 Dec 2011 |
| 21 | Creative Commons | Peer effects, mobility, and innovation: evidence from the superstars of modern art | Dr Christiane Hellmanzik (University of Hamburg) describes how mobility and peer effects worked for superstars of modern art in the 19th century. | Christiane Hellmanzik | 06 Dec 2011 |
| 20 | Individual notions of distributive justice and relative economic status | Luis Miller (University of the Basque Country) presentsaAn experimental sociology study on people's understanding of distributive justice, relative to their economic statuses (unemployed/employed). | Luis Miller | 10 Nov 2011 | |
| 19 | Ethnic, socioeconomic, linguistic, and political sources of ideational cleavage: history wars in contemporary Estonia. | Ted Gerber (University of Wisconsin) presents the ethnic, socio-economic, linguistic and political sources of ideational cleavages in contemporary Estonia between Estonians and the Russian minority. | Ted Gerber | 10 Nov 2011 | |
| 18 | Creative Commons | Regional integration and welfare-state convergence in Europe | Professor Beckfield discusses whether the welfare state convergence is really taking place, or it is just regional integration, especially in the European context. | Jason Beckfield | 08 Jun 2011 |
| 17 | Crossnational similarity and difference in the changing distribution of household income | The author addresses the question how the distribution of household income has been changing in recent decades. | Arthur Alderson | 30 May 2011 | |
| 16 | Creative Commons | The gender revolution: uneven and stalled | The author describes sweeping changes in the gender system and offers explanations for why change has been uneven. | Paula England | 27 May 2011 |
| 15 | Ethnic stratification in Chinas labor markets- the case of Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region | Ethnic Labour market discrimination in China, with a particular focus on the Uyghur Minority. | Xiaogang Wu | 27 May 2011 | |
| 14 | Local Dispute Management in Morocco and Its Transnational Environment | Bertram Turner, Max Planck Institute, Germany, gives a talk on Local Dispute Management in Morocco and Its Transnational Environment for the Extra-Legal Governance Institute. | Bertram Turner | 16 Feb 2011 | |
| 13 | The Dynamics of over-the-counter Derivatives Regulation: Bridging the Public-Private Divide | Daniel Awrey Faculty of Law University of Oxford, gives a talk on The Dynamics of over-the-counter Derivatives Regulation: Bridging the Public-Private Divide for the Extra-Legal Governance Institute. | Daniel Awrey | 09 Feb 2011 | |
| 12 | The Effect of Maternal Stress on Birth Outcomes: Exploiting a Natural Experiment | Lecture delivered by Florencia Torche, Assistant Professor of Sociology and Faculty Affiliate at the Steinhardt School of Education, NYU and Research Affiliate at INSPIRES, NYU School of Medicine. | Florencia Torche | 20 Aug 2010 | |
| 11 | School Racial Composition and Racial Preferences for Friends among Adolescents | Lecture delivered by Jennifer Flashman (University of Oxford). | Jennifer Flashman | 20 Aug 2010 | |
| 10 | Gendered Divisions of Labour and the Intergenerational Transmission of Inequality | Lecture delivered by Jonathan Gershuny, Department of Sociology, University of Oxford. | Jonathan Gershuny | 20 Aug 2010 | |
| 9 | Public Attitudes to Poverty, Inequality and Welfare: What are the Implications for Social Policy? | Lecture delivered by Tim Horton, Research Director and Deputy General Secretary of the Fabian Society, Britain's leading left of centre think tank and political society. | Tim Horton | 20 Aug 2010 | |
| 8 | Prenatal Health, Educational Attainment and Intergenerational Inequality | Lecture delivered by Juho Härkönen, Assistant Professor at the Swedish Institute for Social Research (SOFI), Stockholm University. | Juho Härkönen | 20 Aug 2010 | |
| 7 | How Much Does Family Matter? A Cross-Cultural Study of the Impact of Kin on Birth and Death Rates | Lecture delivered by Dr Rebecca Sear, Lecturer in Population Studies, London School of Economics. | Rebecca Sear | 20 Aug 2010 | |
| 6 | Is IQ a "Fundamental Cause" of Health? Cognitive Ability, Gender, and Survival | Lecture delivered by Professor Robert M Hauser (University of Wisconsin-Madison). | Robert M Hauser | 20 Aug 2010 | |
| 5 | Organizing Crime | Douglas Rogers, George Mason University gives a talk on A Theory of Organized Crime for the Extra Legal Governance Institute. | Douglas Rogers, George Mason University | 20 Aug 2010 | |
| 4 | Pirates of Somalia | Dr Sarah Percy and Dr Anja Shortland give a talk on Pirates of Somalia for the Extra-Legal Governance Institute. | Sarah Percy, Anja Shortland | 20 Aug 2010 | |
| 3 | Undertaking Sensitive Research: Ethnographies in the Illegal Sex Industry in post-socialist China | Dr Tiantian Zheng, State University of New York, gives a talk on Ethnographies in the Illegal Sex Industry in post-socialist China for the Extra-Legal Governance Institute. | Tiantian Zheng | 20 Aug 2010 | |
| 2 | Corruption, Inequality and the Rule of Law | Prof Eric Uslaner, University of Maryland gives a talk on Corruption, Inequality and the Rule of Law for the Extra-Legal Governance Institute. | Eric Uslaner | 18 Aug 2010 | |
| 1 | Protection for Sale? War and the Transformation of Regulation on the Congo-Ugandan Border | Timothy Raeymakers, University of Ghent gives a talk for the Extra-Legal Governance Institute on War and the Transformation of Regulation on the Congo-Ugandan Border. | Timothy Raeymakers | 18 Aug 2010 |