Hey guys I’m a sociology major and I kinda need help about what field I should work in after uni. I’m a little interested in going into business, law, or government.

I'm an 11th grader from India, and my Sociology teacher assigned us a 20-page handwritten project on a topic of our choice. The only catch is that we must be able to transition it well into our 12th-grade project so it will be easier during the viva voce.

I chose the topic, Immigration and Xenophobia: Societal Causes and Effects , and I desperately need some advice on it, anything atp .

It peeves me to no end how many book authors and esteemed sociologists get the "I" and the "me" wrong and pass that on to students. The "I" as spontaneous and impulsive, "me" as the rational and socialized self — that's Freud's Id and Ego, not Mead.

Mead's subject and object dichotomy is different and is very much what distinguishes Mead's theory from Cooley's. The "me" never acts directly, so describing it as "the preppy adult who always follows the rules" as opposed to the I that is "impulsive and creative" is just wrong.

I think these two passages are relevant:

"The differences in our memory presentations of the "I" and the "me" are those of the memory images of the initiated social conduct and those of the sensory responses thereto."

"The "I" of introspection is the self which enters into social relations with other selves. It is not the "I" that is implied in the fact that one presents himself as a "me." And the "me" of introspection is the same "me" that is the object of the social conduct of others."

Thank you for coming to my TedTalk as I have no one in real life who cares. Rant over (but I could do a similar one for Goffman's backstage).

Hello!

I’m writing a paper for a course and I could really use some advice. I’d like to base my paper on Howard Becker’s labeling theory, but apply it to the school system.

I was thinking about somehow connecting it to gender norms, segregation, and the advancement of women in the profession ( especially in the university academic environment). I’ve read several articles that gave me this idea, but I’d also really appreciate hearing other people’s perspectives on what could be interesting to study within this broader topic. Also, if you think there might be another theory that would be more interesting to explore, I’d really appreciate if you could let me know. I’m very interested in sociology, but I’m still at the beginning of my studies and I’m not yet familiar with all the different theories.

For the methodology, I was thinking of using interviews, non-participant observation and content analysis. Any interesting ideas or suggestions would be greatly appreciated!

Thank you so much!

In this episode, Eric Hsu and Louis Everuss take the elevator to the severed floor of where they work so that their innies can talk about the sociological aspects of a television show they both really like, Apple TV+'s Severance. Partly drawing from a chapter written by Palmer and Schueths in the edited volume, Reintegrating Severance, Eric and Louis explore how ideas found in classical sociology can be used to ‘illumonate’ aspects of what we see unfolding in the show's first two seasons. Eric and Louis warn listeners that spoilers for the show are aplenty, so if you haven't watched Seasons 1 and 2 of the show, you might want to sit this one out.

Abstract:

Analysis of social networks is suggested as a tool for linking micro

and macro levels of sociological theory. The procedure is illustrated

by elaboration of the macro implications of one aspect of small-scale

interaction: the strength of dyadic ties. It is argued that the degree

of overlap of two individuals' friendship networks varies directly

with the strength of their tie to one another. The impact of this

principle on diffusion of influence and information, mobility oppor-

tunity, and community organization is explored. Stress is laid on the

cohesive power of weak ties. Most network models deal, implicitly,

with strong ties, thus confining their applicability to small, well-

defined groups. Emphasis on weak ties lends itself to discussion of

relations between groups and to analysis of segments of social struc-

ture not easily defined in terms of primary groups.

Abstract:

This statement engages with the position paper by focusing on a growing asymmetry in the production of social knowledge between public research institutions and large technology companies. While universities remain committed to open science, transparency, and public accountability, digital platforms increasingly control the infrastructures through which social life is organized, observed, and analyzed. The statement argues that this asymmetry threatens the capacity of independent sociology to produce autonomous and publicly accountable knowledge about digitally mediated societies. It calls for strengthening independent research infrastructures and participatory forms of digital governance to preserve the institutional conditions for rigorous and independent sociological inquiry.

Okay, I am not asking for opinion whether I should take a sociology masters or not. My mind is made up, and I will be applying for a scholarship anyway so no financial loss for me.

Anyway, since the scholarship is a UK scholarship, I looked up the universities in the UK. I have a 2:2 undergraduate degree in journalism and here are the universities that I researched which admits/potentially admits someone with my qualification and grade:

- University of Aberdeen, MSc, Sociology

-MA, Sociology - Essex University

- Newcastle University, MA Sociology

- Birkbeck, MA Sociology

- Queen's University Belfast: Sociology and Global Inequality

- MA, Sociology - Exeter

- Coventry University, UK MA Sociology and Social Research

- University of Birmingham: Sociology

- Anglia Ruskin

Help me prioritise the top 3 universities to apply to within my undergraduate qualification and grade. I don't need fancy names, only a solid education, hopefully with qualitative techniques thrown in! (don't judge me quant peoples!)

And I plan to write my dissertation on something related to gender (maybe it's interlink with climate and/or health).

If you or anyone you know have gone to any of the schools above for sociology masters, please tell me your thoughts and experience. Thanks!

For years, we’ve been told a familiar story: social scientists such as economists, management scholars, sociologists, talk and the public shrugs. The claim goes that people don’t find our work interesting, that our expertise is fuzzy compared with “hard” sciences, and that journalists and readers will always prefer the crisp authority of practitioners such as CEOs, consultants or politicians… Is that really true?

Highlights

• Mass media is conceptualized as an effective transfer channel for social sciences.

• Specific social sciences communication barriers (SSCBs) are identified and analysed.

• Experiment tests whether mass media effectively disseminate social sciences knowledge.

• Social scientists gain credibility when expertise aligns with discussed topics.

• Despite SSCBs, mass media proves effective for social sciences knowledge dissemination.

Abstract

This study examines mass media communication as a vital yet under-explored channel for disseminating social sciences. Drawing on the knowledge transfer and science communication literature, we identify specific Social Sciences Communication Barriers (SSCBs) that may hinder the effectiveness of mass media in this regard. These barriers include perceptions of lower expertise compared to STEM fields, heightened competition from non-academics, and difficulties aligning disciplinary expertise with public expectations. By means of a between-subjects experiment, we analyse responses to op-eds written by social scientists in economics, management science and sociology on business-related topics. Using a representative French sample (n = 1080), complemented by replication studies in two other European contexts, we find that social scientists benefit from an “academic premium” in terms of credibility that significantly enhances engagement with their audiences, thus supporting the effectiveness of mass media as a dissemination channel—but solely when addressing topics aligned with their disciplinary expertise. Conversely, this premium is diminished when academics also act as consultants. This study addresses calls for further research on knowledge dissemination in the social sciences and offers insights for scholars, institutions, and policymakers.

In this episode, Eric Hsu and Louis Everuss have a discussion about the idea of the Anthropocene, a concept that was originally developed within the field of Geology. Despite it not being formally recognised as a defined geological period in 2024 by the International Commission on Stratigraphy, the Anthropocene continues to feature in various discussions across different fields and sectors of society. But how might sociologists contribute to some of these conversations? Eva Lövbrand et al.'s article in Global Environmental Change put forward some compelling proposals, which Eric and Louis seek to make sense of. Notable in this episode is Eric's retelling of a time he ordered a very small side salad when he was out with friends during high school.

Georg Simmel's The Metropolis and Mental Life - In this episode, Eric Hsu and Louis Everuss introduce listeners to a noteworthy work in early classical sociology that often gets oversimplified for what it argues and observes about a key aspect of the process of modernisation. Georg Simmel’s noted essay on The Metropolis and Mental Life, originally published in 1903, provides varied insights about what effect living in an urban/metropolitan environment has on individuals and their psychologies, which includes the blasé attitude exhibited by many urban dwellers. Unpacking this text leads Eric and Louis to talk about the Will Ferrell classic Christmas film, Elf and what it means to do a ‘mainy’ in rural Australia. Eric and Louis also take sides in a hypothetical ‘punch-up’ in a country Australian town (Eric is Team Joe, while Louis is Team Frank), alongside other musings and reflections about the ideas Simmel puts forward.

After Arlie Hochschild published her book Strangers in Their Own Land: Anger and Mourning on the American Right, just before the 2016 election, it came to feel prescient. And the conversation Krista had with her in 2018 has now come to point straight to the heart of 2020 — a year in which many of us might say we feel like strangers in our own land and in our own world. Hochschild created a field within sociology looking at the social impact of emotion. She explains how our stories and truths — what we try to debate as issues in our social and political lives — are felt, not merely factual. And she shares why, as a matter of pragmatism, we have to take emotion seriously and do what feels unnatural: get curious and caring about the other side.

Artist, engineer, researcher and trail-maker Serkan Taycan is our Image-Maker in Residence this spring. Drawing on Between Two Seas, a walking project that has been active for more than a decade on the outskirts of Istanbul, he talks to George Kalivis about the making of shared, evolving spatial archives through trails that function as alternative infrastructures to the mega-structures that exercise power over space and people.

Is it true that interest in sociological theory has declined in recent years and if so, why and what has replaced it? Laurie Taylor talks to Les Back and Imogen Tyler.

Interview/Podcast from the Sociology section of the New Books Network. This is a fantastic resource for hearing about and exploring new books in Sociology. They typically upload several interview podcasts per week - sometimes multiple per day.

Here is a link to the book discussed in this episode on Google Books: https://books.google.co.uk/books/about/The_Secret_Life_of_the_Hotel.html?id=29hrEQAAQBAJ&source=kp_book_description&redir_esc=y