Sociology

Sam Wren-Lewis asks whether people are really looking for the 'real change' that Labour are promising, arguing that taking a longer-term perspective has the potential to unite the left and right.…Read more

Sam Wren-Lewis looks at the General Election from the point of view of political psychology, revealing how the problems of democracy and happiness have more in common than you think.…Read more

In his new book, Social Innovation: How Societies Find the Power to Change – out today – Geoff Mulgan shows how social innovation offers a comprehensive view of what can be done to solve the global social challenges we face. This extract highlights the importance of public perceptions of government and how they should be working Read More

Today is the International Day of the Elimination of Violence Against Women which marks the start of 16 days of activism to end violence against women. With international events raising awareness about the impact of sexual violence, it’s a good time to think through how the dominance of ‘trauma’ might actually hide the full extent Read More

Following the tragedy in Essex last month, where 39 people were found in a lorry container, Alice Bloch, Professor of Sociology at the University of Manchester, examines the complex issue of migration. Migration is not a new phenomena and nor are the immigration polices that try and restrict migration or those that make the lives Read More

In Social Innovation: How Societies Find Power to Change, out later this month, Geoff Mulgan explains how the phenomena provides answers to the most pressing global, social, economic and sustainability problems. In this extract from the book he describes why society needs both disruptors and cleaners to make social innovation happen. This idea plays out Read More

In this episode of the Transforming Society podcast we speak to Sam Wren-Lewis, author of The Happiness Problem: Expecting Better in an Uncertain World. In his book, Sam argues that the way we’re thinking about happiness in modern societies is wrong. We’re not seeing the bigger picture because we’re so focused on control and distracted Read More

Paul Stubbs is a UK-born sociologist and currently a Senior Research Fellow in the Institute of Economics, Zagreb, Croatia. Here he looks at the work of Stuart Hall, and how John Clarke, author of Critical Dialogues: Thinking Together in Turbulent Times, built on this to guide us through spatio-temporal shifts in the UK and beyond, Read More

Sam Wren-Lewis talks about his book The Happiness Problem: Expecting Better in an Uncertain World.  He argues that we are thinking about happiness in the wrong way, but that by changing our approach away from control and towards understanding, we might have a chance of transforming society for the better.   The Happiness Problem by Read More

John Clarke’s book, Critical Dialogues: Thinking Together in Turbulent Times, celebrates the productive possibilities of what he terms ‘thinking together’. His work can be used to challenge the idea of identity as singular, fixed and immutable – an idea in which people are assumed to have their own, unique, authentic identity, and to belong to Read More