Department of Sociology

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.

All episodes

Title	Description	People	Date
Cees van der Eijk on “Contextualising Research Methods	Cees van der Eijk gives a talk for the Sociology seminar series.	Cees van der Eijk	4 June, 2015
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	4 June, 2015
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 July, 2014
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 July, 2014
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 January, 2014
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 January, 2014
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 November, 2013
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 November, 2013
Intergenerational relationships: Does grandparental childcare pay off?	Intergenerational relationships: Does grandparental childcare pay off?	Valeria Bordone	21 October, 2013
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	9 September, 2013
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 August, 2013
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 August, 2013
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 August, 2013
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
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
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
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 April, 2013
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 March, 2013
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 March, 2013
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 March, 2013
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 March, 2013
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 February, 2013
Income inequality and personality- Are more equal US States more agreeable?	How does inequality influence personal agreeableness?	Robert de Vries	30 January, 2013
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 January, 2013
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 January, 2013
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 December, 2012
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	3 December, 2012
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 October, 2012
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 October, 2012
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 October, 2012
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	7 July, 2012
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	7 July, 2012
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	9 March, 2012
Childbearing across partnerships	How does childbearing work across various types of partnerships, including but not limited to cohabitation, marriage, re-married couples.	Elizabeth Thomson	9 March, 2012
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	9 March, 2012
Structural and exchange mobility in Britain and the USA: 1870-1970	Historical approach on social mobility in Britain and the US.	Mike Hout	20 February, 2012
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 February, 2012
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 January, 2012
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	6 December, 2011
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	6 December, 2011
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	6 December, 2011
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 November, 2011
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 November, 2011
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	8 June, 2011
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
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
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
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 February, 2011
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	9 February, 2011
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 August, 2010
School Racial Composition and Racial Preferences for Friends among Adolescents	Lecture delivered by Jennifer Flashman (University of Oxford).	Jennifer Flashman	20 August, 2010
Gendered Divisions of Labour and the Intergenerational Transmission of Inequality	Lecture delivered by Jonathan Gershuny, Department of Sociology, University of Oxford.	Jonathan Gershuny	20 August, 2010
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 August, 2010
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 August, 2010
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 August, 2010
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 August, 2010
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 August, 2010
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 August, 2010
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 August, 2010
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 August, 2010
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 August, 2010

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