Sociology in action—examine how social theories apply to real-world issues like education, work, politics, crime, and digital culture. Discover how society shapes everyday life.
Durkheim never saw a social media pile-on, but he worried about what holds societies together and how they draw moral boundaries. This article introduces his ideas on social facts, solidarity, crime and anomie, and uses them to analyse contemporary “culture wars” over statues, values and offence – and to show where his framework now needs updating.
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Watching Trading Places as a Christmas comfort film, it is hard not to see a ready-made sociological case study. The Dukes’ “experiment” looks like a simple nature-versus-nurture wager, but the life swap really turns on class, race and access to capital. This article uses Bourdieu’s framework to show how the film exposes—and then neatly smooths over—the myth of meritocracy.
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Marx wrote about factories and nineteenth-century class conflict, not delivery apps or algorithmic ratings. So how far can his ideas take us today? This article introduces Marx’s core concepts and tests them against platform capitalism and the gig economy, showing what still works, what does not, and where later theorists extend his framework.
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What if the rules that govern school life aren’t neutral? This article explores how symbolic violence—subtle norms and expectations—rewards middle-class students while sidelining others.
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Dutch philosopher Gert Biesta critiques how education has shifted from ethical formation to outcome-focused learning. His concept of subjectification offers a compelling vision for educators seeking a more human-centred, democratic practice.
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This article explores how generative AI systems reinforce class-based linguistic hierarchies by privileging elaborated codes aligned with middle-class norms, drawing on Bernstein’s theory of language and sociological critiques of educational inequality.
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An in-depth sociological analysis of the UK higher education sector in 2025, exploring the paradox of rising student demand amid widespread institutional financial instability, graduate precarity, and market-driven reform.
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Comment sections are designed – both algorithmically and editorially – to reward anger, blame, and divisive language. This erodes civic trust, reduces democratic participation, and fosters cynicism towards both media institutions and social solidarity.
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Viva-style exams are promoted as an AI-proof assessment solution, but do they reinforce class, linguistic, and neurodiversity exclusions? This sociological analysis unpacks how language, power, and educational justice intersect in the AI age.
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An in-depth sociological analysis of the erosion of trust in expertise, exploring how digital platforms, cultural individualism, and institutional failures have reshaped public understanding of knowledge and authority.
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