Department of Sociology

Latest news

Centre for Ethnicity and Citizenship Anniversary: A reception was recently held to celebrate the Centre's 10th anniversary.  A summary of the Centre's accomplishments, written by Professor Tariq Modood, can be downloaded here (pdf, 133k).

Latest Publication News: A second edition of Professor Steve Fenton's Ethnicity has been released, with an accompanying blog posted on Polity Press's website. Dr Michael Naughton recently edited the book The Criminal Cases Review Commission: Hope for the Innocent?, which has received considerable attention in the press. It was reviewed in the Guardian and Society Today, as well as forming the basis of an article calling its conclusions into question in the Times.

Academics on Television: Dr Michael Naughton and Professor Tariq Modood were both recent contributors to the BBC1's The Big Questions, appearing on Sunday 10th January.  Details of the programme and the debates in which they participated are available on the BBC's website.

£4.3 million ESRC Large Grant Success! Poverty in the United Kingdom: The 2010 Survey: Professor Ruth Levitas and Dr Esther Dermott are among the co-applicants on this successful bid to conduct a new UK-wide poverty survey, which will build on earlier work including the 1999 Poverty and Social Exclusion Survey (funded by JRF) and more recent work by Ruth and colleagues in SPS on defining and measuring social exclusion. This is the largest grant ever given for poverty research in the UK. Besides providing comparable data to the 1999 survey, the project will help to improve the measures of poverty and social exclusion in ongoing work, in the UK and across the world. The PI is Professor David Gordon in SPS, and the research team includes Eldin Fahmy, Christina Pantazis and other members of SPS as well as colleagues at Heriot-Watt University, the National Centre of Social Research, Northern Ireland Statistics and Research Agency, Open University, Queen's University Belfast, University of Glasgow and the University of York.

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Postgraduate Research Scholarships Available

The University of Bristol is offering 15 Postgraduate Research Scholarships for home (UK or EU) students and 12 Postgraduate Research Scholarships for overseas students who begin their degrees in 2010.

The scholarships will cover tuition fees and a maintenance stipend of approximately £13,000.

If you wish to be considered for this award, you must apply for a place with the Department no later than 1 March 2010.

Welcome to the Department of Sociology at the University of Bristol.

One of the best known departments in the country, we are committed to supporting both staff and students in achieving academic excellence.  We feature:
  • First rate, research-led teaching at both undergraduate and postgraduate level.
  • An outstanding record for student support and positive, friendly staff/student relationships.
  • An internationally diverse student body who are active and involved with the department, the University and the wider community.
  • Rigorous, independent research by academic staff, funded by a number of research councils, Government agencies and charities.
  • Intellectual diversity, with internationally renowned expertise in a broad variety of research areas.

Our aim is to combine a range of academic perspectives with a strong grounding in the fundamentals of the discipline to create a challenging and stimulating learning environment.

This website is divided into sections with information for prospective students, current students and staff.  Please explore—if you have any questions about what you find here, or questions that are not answered by our site, feel free to contact us.

The Department of Politics, Department of Sociology and Centre for East Asian Studies are merging, with effect from 1st August 2010, to create a new School within the Faculty of Social Sciences and Law.  For more information on 'schoolification,' please see the Schoolification page.