Challenging ‘Lad Culture’ in Higher Education and Through Education Thursday, 4th June, 12.30-4.30, in the Social Sciences Building, level 12, room 12.25 We warmly invite you to this half-day event hosted by Sharon Elley, FLaG and Sally Hines, CIGS… Read More ›
Higher Education 
We spend ever more hours of our day discussing, analysing and assessing what we do, and ever fewer hours actually doing it
An excellent account of the stultifying experience of the acceleration of higher education: There’s a simple explanation for the drive to quantify everything: the replacement of the horizontal self-government of university departments with the vertical hierarchy of departmental heads and… Read More ›
CfP: The Neoliberal University: Gender, Class, & Sexuality
This panel intends to investigate processes of bureaucratization and business-afication of the university and the role that these have in re-shaping the interrelations of class, gender, and sexuality; and the specific ways that the change from educational pedagogy to business… Read More ›
The Cheat’s Guide to Academic Success
HT Petra Boynton. It’s funny but it’s fucking tragic that this is so:
The multi-millionaires running higher education
To say things are “getting out of hand, especially given the tax-exempt nature of universities” shows an impressive capacity for understatement: For E. Gordon Gee’s final year as the president of Ohio State University, which he left in 2013, he… Read More ›
ISRF Workshop: Social Science as Communication
ISRF Workshop: Social Science as Communication June 1st & 2nd 2015 – Summerhall, Edinburgh Click Here to Register The Independent Social Research Foundation (ISRF) provides competitive funding for independent–minded researchers. It supports original work which takes new approaches and suggests… Read More ›
The Journal of Applied Social Theory
The Journal of Applied Social Theory is an exciting new journal launched by the team behind Social Theory Applied: The Journal of Applied Social Theory aims to provide an intellectual space where critical applications of social theory (in all its… Read More ›
Re-appropriating Value(s) in Higher Education
Re-appropriating Value(s) in Higher Education 25th June, University of Manchester Despite years of investment into widening participation agendas, marginalised persons, whether in terms of class, gender, race, ethnicity, sexuality or disability, remain ‘devalued’ (Skeggs and Loveday 2012) owing to systems and structures of Higher… Read More ›
National Demonstration Against Casualisation and TeachHigher
19th June at the University of Warwick. There’s a Facebook event here. Details copied & pasted below: “No to the ‘insourcing’ and further casualisation of academic staff!” TeachHigher threatens job security and quality education at ALL UK universities. Make your… Read More ›
Petition for Warwick University staff to show solidarity with graduate students opposing Teach Higher
The petition is online here. Please forward to any Warwick staff you know who are opposed to casualisation in higher education. Events have been moving so rapidly that there’s no up to date report on events but this Times Higher… Read More ›
Dear academic hive mind, please help me identify radical education projects in the UK
A few years ago I produced a list of all the radical education projects that sprang up in the wake of the government’s agenda for higher education ‘reform’. I didn’t really have a clear definition of ‘radical education projects’ beyond… Read More ›
Engaging with communities workshop
ENGAGING WITH COMMUNITIES WORKSHOP, LONDON Wednesday, May 20th, 10:30am to 3:30pm We have launched a brand new workshop aimed at academics wanting to, or already working with community based organisations and groups. The workshop will provide you with an… Read More ›
Visual Matrix Workshop: Imagery, Affect and Visualisation in a Psychosocial Research Method
Association for Psychosocial Studies in collaboration with Birkbeck Institute for Social Research Visual Matrix Workshop: Imagery, Affect and Visualisation in a Psychosocial Research Method Friday 5 June 2015| 10.00am – 5.00pm | Room B03, 43 Gordon Square This is the first workshop in… Read More ›
Childhood and Youth Postgraduate Summer School
5th International CSCY Summer School for Postgraduate Students Wednesday 15 – Thursday 16 July 2015 ICOSS, 219 Portobello, Sheffield, UK This exciting two day international summer school is for post-graduate students working in the area of childhood and youth. The… Read More ›
How obsessive auditing produces “a profession which is incompatible with a normal life”
80% of new teachers in 2005 were still teaching after their first year. In 2015 that has shrunk to just 62%, coupled with record numbers leaving mid career. In the intervening period, we’ve seen successive governments seek to transform schooling… Read More ›
The Brave New World of Work: Over 25% of Jobs on Unitemps are for Interns
Out of curiosity I just searched for ‘internship’ on Unitemps. There are 57 results with intern in the title. There are currently 201 jobs listed on Unitemps. So over 25% of jobs on Unitemps are currently looking for interns. Many… Read More ›
Brick Walls: On Racism and Other Hard Histories – Sara Ahmed @SocioWarwick on May 20th
Warwick Borders, Race, Ethnicity and Migration Network Public Lecture 2015 Brick Walls: On Racism and Other Hard Histories Professor Sara Ahmed, Goldsmiths, University of London Wednesday 20th May 5pm-6.30pm Room S0.11, Social Sciences Building, University of Warwick In her book,… Read More ›
The Shifting Sociologies of the Street
Tuesday 15 September 2015, 10.00 – 18.00, University of Kent A symposium sponsored by The Sociological Review The street has long been a key laboratory for studies of social life, from the roots of urban sociology in the pioneering ethnographies… Read More ›
Well-Being, Society and Crisis Symposium
BSA Regional Postgraduate Symposium, Leicester 4th June 2015 [https://email.le.ac.uk/owa/attachment.ashx?id=RgAAAABQ4AuSVdL5Qp%2fgoGWcz7rWBwCIa9q2t0OUQbvj21KIs5GAAQ9YTEAyAADapJ1vhKtvTqNXaCDm8cMdAAAri%2b%2bUAAAJ&attcnt=1&attid0=EACiLBx%2fL1tXSb%2fpq1rZ6yLA&attcid0=1bb6e78f-6162-41d1-838c-0462f6a523c8] Society and Crisis: Quantitative and Qualitative Evaluations of Societal Well-Being Thursday 4th of June 2015 College Court University of Leicester Programme: 9:30 – 10:00 Registration and coffee 10:00 – 10:15 Welcome… Read More ›
Critical Realism: Reimagining Social Science
“Critical Realism: Reimagining Social Science” at the University of Notre Dame, Notre Dame/South Bend, Indiana, USA 27-30 July 2015 “What difference does critical realism make for how we do our empirical work?” More work must be done on how Critical… Read More ›
International Social Theory Consortium 2015 in Cambridge, UK, June 17-19
4th Annual Conference of the International Social Theory Consortium Cambridge, UK, June 17-19, 2015 Details at www.socialtheory.org/ISTC2015 RECONSTRUCTING SOCIAL THEORY, HISTORY AND PRACTICE We are pleased to announce the 2015 meeting of the International Social Theory Consortium to be held… Read More ›
Queer Kinship & Relationship Conference 2015 – Registration till 17th og May (only few places left)
We are pleased to announce the registration for non-presenting participants for the Queer Kinship And Relationship Conference (8-11 June 2015, Zalesie, Poland). During the conference we will concentrate on different understandings of queer kinships/relationships, and present more insights into the… Read More ›
The omnipresent threat of violence under neoliberalism
An important argument by David Graeber in his new book. I’ve been thinking about this (particularly on university campuses) since events at Warwick last term and I find his analysis deeply persuasive: And indeed, in this most recent phase of… Read More ›
Academic entrepreneurship and white privilege
An interesting story circulated recently which was widely seen as a particularly egregious instance of white privilege within the academy: On the evening of March 25, the hashtag #CadaanStudies (“cadaan” meaning “white” in Somali) emerged amongst Twitter timelines as a… Read More ›
‘Media, Gender & Culture’ Summer School, King’s College London
King’s College London Summer School 2014 ‘Media, Gender & Culture’ 6-24 July 2015 How does gender organize contemporary life? What role does media play in shaping individual identities, cultural attitudes and social practices? How can we understand… Read More ›
Occupational Hazards (Palestine/Kashmir): Authority & Political Technologies 2015
Sociology Department Theories & Methodologies Cluster and the Authority Research Network Present a two day symposium at the University of Warwick Occupational Hazards: Theories & Methodologies (Palestine/Kashmir) – a workshop: Thursday May 7th. Authority & Political Technologies 2015: Dialogues and Works in Progress: Friday… Read More ›
The ten habits of failed grant proposal writers
An incredibly useful post by Pat Thomson, particularly for those early career researchers (such as myself) beginning to cautiously dip their toes into the water of applying for grants: the ten habits of highly unsuccessful research bid writers
The most popular posts over the last 5 years of Sociological Imagination
Home page / Archives Charles Wright Mills’ Sociological Imagination and why we fail to match it today How to write a good sociology essay (and not panic) About Is someone you care about involved with post structuralism? Making the familiar… Read More ›
A new campaign for accessible conferences fees
Do you think conference fees are too high? Lots of people do (including the editor of this site). Sign a petition here to show your support. You can find out more about the campaign and the issues it’s addressing here:… Read More ›
What will micro-publishing look like in higher education?
A few weeks ago I was browsing a photography bookshop in London and came across the term ‘micro-publisher’ for the first time. The friend I was with seemed slightly bemused that I hadn’t encountered the term and explained that it… Read More ›