School of Social and Political Science

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Research

Research content

Our work is at the crossroads of professional, critical, public and user-oriented policy sociology and focuses on the interweaving of individual lives, social processes and historical change. Our goal is the growth and deepening of an already large and vibrant community of scholars, active across a wide range of specialisms in sociology. We aim to be intellectually innovative, flexible, inclusive, enabling and capacity-building. We foster intellectual diversity rather than impose homogeneity.

Find out more about our key research themes below. 

 

Research impact

Learn more about how the impact on society of Sociology research here:
Sociology research impact examples

Research projects content

Research projects

Research projects links to content

microwave towers outside one of the datacentres in which high-frequency trading takes place. Image courtesy of Bird&Renoult

A Material Sociology of High-Frequency Trading

This project explores how today’s automated trading has developed and is currently conducted. It also studies the interaction between automated trading and market structures both in the US and Europe. 
A New Page? Libraries, Austerity and the Shifting Boundaries of Civil Society

A New Page? Libraries, Austerity and the Shifting Boundaries of Civil Society

This project focuses on public libraries and the things they do in, and for, the neighbourhoods in which they are based.

In Another Tongue event banner

Artful Sociology: Exploring Avenues for Interdisciplinarity Between Sociology and the Art World

Dr Laura Harris is an ESRC Postdoctoral Fellow in Sociology at the University of Edinburgh. Her current project is called Artful Sociology: Exploring Avenues for Interdisciplinarity Between Sociology and the Art World and has involved collaborating with Talbot Rice Gallery in the production of the event In Another Tongue.
Phone with social media apps visible

ARTICONF

ARTICONF - The smART socIal media eCOsystem in a blockchaiN Federated environment - project is a EU Horizon 2020 project focusing on decentralised social media services.

Refugee camp
Sociology

GLIMER – Governance and the local integration of migrants and Europe’s refugees

GLIMER works towards solutions that transform the 'refugee crisis' into an opportunity for European cities.
Heat in the city logo
Sociology

Heat and the city

A multi-disciplinary research project addressing a major need in European energy and climate policy: how do we reduce the energy used for heating and hot water in buildings and create a low carbon heat supply?
Scottish Book Trust Bookbug
Sociology

Impact Evaluation of Scottish Book Trust’s Bookbug Programme

Sociology: The two-year evaluation examines how, and to what extent, Bookbug impacts on the lives of families in Scotland, and on the knowledge, attitudes and practices of early-years professionals.
Father and son walking together
Sociology

Networks of Reproduction in Complex Planetary Futures (NETREP)

NETREP (Networks of Reproduction in Complex Planetary Futures) is a 4-year, qualitative study, using multiple methods. The project is being led by Anna-Maija Castrén at the University of Eastern Finland. Anna-Maija is joined by project research colleagues Aino Luotonen and Jenna Siivonen at the University of Eastern Finland, Vanessa Cunha and Rita Gouveia at the University of Lisbon, and Lynn Jamieson, Emma Davidson, Liliana Arias Uruena, and Lisa Howard at the University of Edinburgh.
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Teaching Feminisms, Transforming Lives

The project involves the coming together of two institutions to reflect collectively and comparatively on the transformative potential of doing feminisms in the academy, delving into questions of identity, pedagogy and violence.
Cups of kindness. Copyright Susan McGill Design.

Telling Good Stories

The Leverhulme Trust is funding sociologist Dr Julie Brownlie to examine – and problematise – the stories we tell about kindness.
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The Feminist Policy Project

The Feminist Policy Project (FPP) will be a collaborative venture through which contributors critically evaluate and creatively re-write a range of UK social policies.
Cape Town, South Africa
Sociology

Whites writing whiteness

The whites writing whiteness (WWW) research is shaped by the social theory of Norbert Elias and involves a Qualitative Longitudinal Research (QLR) historical sociology investigation of social change and the processes of racialisation in South Africa.