Recent Articles
Thinking Like a Sociologist: A Practical Guide to Deductive, Inductive, and Abductive Reasoning
This guide explains how deductive, inductive, and abductive reasoning function in sociological research, offering clear examples, practical applications, and advice for integrating these approaches to produce rigorous, insightful studies.
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Understanding Gert Biesta: Reclaiming Education’s Purpose for Aspiring Educators
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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Talking to the Machine: AI, Language Codes, and the Reproduction of Inequality
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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Boom and Bust: The Paradox of UK Higher Education
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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Reflexive but Unrecognised: Misreading Critical Research in the Doctoral Review
Doctoral progress reviews are framed as supportive and developmental. Yet for candidates pursuing reflexive, critical, or non-linear research, they often become spaces of misrecognition—where methodological ambiguity is pathologised, and intellectual risk is penalised. This article…
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Below the Line: The Structural Violence of News Comment Sections
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.
Read moreRecent ‘Explained’ Articles
What Is Functionalism?
What is functionalism? This article explains how functionalists understand social order, institutions, shared values and the way different parts of society work together.
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What Is a Moral Panic?
What is a moral panic, and why do some social problems become symbols of a much wider threat? This article explores Stanley Cohen, folk devils, deviancy amplification, media reactions and how social media algorithms have…
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Is Education Really a Meritocracy?
Is education really a meritocracy? This article explores how class, cultural capital, teacher expectations and unequal opportunities shape educational achievement.
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How Do We Learn How to Behave?
How do we learn the unwritten rules of social life? This article explores socialisation, identity, family, education, peers, media and the ways society shapes how we behave.
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Why Does Where You Live Affect Your Opportunities?
Where you live can shape access to education, work, housing, transport and public services. This article explores how place becomes part of social inequality and why opportunity is unevenly distributed across different areas.
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What Makes Something Deviant?
What makes behaviour deviant, and who gets to decide? This article explores social norms, labelling, stigma, power and why definitions of deviance change across time, place and social groups.
Read moreThinking Sociologically explores class, power, and everyday life through a critical lens — with practical tools for reading the social world.
