Social Sciences
Sociology & Anthropology
Human beings as social animals — the structures they build, inherit, and rarely notice.
12 fields · 101 topics · 13 curated works
Fields within Sociology & Anthropology
Sociological Theory
9The frameworks used to explain social order and change.
Functionalism · Conflict Theory · Symbolic Interactionism · Structuration Theory · Critical Theory
Social Stratification & Inequality
9Who ends up where, and why it persists.
Class Structure · Social Mobility · Income & Wealth Inequality · Poverty · Elite Formation
Race, Ethnicity & Migration
8Group boundaries and movement across them.
Racial Formation · Ethnic Identity · Discrimination & Segregation · Immigration & Integration · Diaspora Studies
Gender & Sexuality
8How societies organise sex, gender and family roles.
Gender Roles & Socialisation · Feminist Theory · Gender & Labour · Masculinity Studies · Sexuality Studies
Family, Kinship & Community
7The smallest durable social units.
Kinship Systems · Marriage & Partnership · Parenting & Childrearing · Household Economics · Community & Belonging
Urban & Rural Sociology
8How place shapes life.
Urbanisation · Neighbourhood Effects · Gentrification · Housing & Homelessness · Suburbanisation
Criminology & Deviance
10Rule-breaking and the systems built to respond.
Theories of Crime · Crime Statistics & Measurement · Policing · Prisons & Incarceration · Rehabilitation & Recidivism
Cultural Anthropology
10Understanding a way of life from the inside.
Ethnographic Method · Participant Observation · Cultural Relativism · Ritual & Symbolism · Exchange & Reciprocity
Biological & Evolutionary Anthropology
8Humans as a species with a deep history.
Human Origins · Primatology · Hunter-Gatherer Societies · The Agricultural Transition · Human Biological Variation
Social Networks & Collective Behaviour
8Structure and contagion in social systems.
Network Structure & Centrality · Weak Ties · Diffusion of Innovation · Social Contagion · Crowds & Collective Action
Demography
8The arithmetic of populations, which drives more than most people expect.
Fertility · Mortality & Life Expectancy · Migration Patterns · Population Ageing · Demographic Transition
Sociology of Religion, Science & Technology
8Institutions of belief and knowledge, studied sociologically.
Secularisation · Religious Movements · Sociology of Scientific Knowledge · Science & Technology Studies · Technology & Social Change
Reading in Sociology & Anthropology
13Start here
No prior grounding assumed.
- BookThe Death and Life of Great American CitiesJane Jacobs, 1961
Cities work through dense, mixed, closely watched streets, and the planning orthodoxy of the era was destroying exactly that.
- BookGuns, Germs, and SteelJared Diamond, 1997
Attributes unequal development to geography and biogeography rather than to peoples — influential, and heavily contested by historians.
Then
Assumes you know the vocabulary.
- BookThe Souls of Black FolkW. E. B. Du Bois, 1903
Introduces double consciousness — seeing yourself through the eyes of a society that despises you — and founds American sociology of race.
- PaperThe Strength of Weak TiesMark Granovetter, 1973· 21 pages
Novel information arrives through acquaintances rather than close friends, because weak ties bridge otherwise separate clusters.
- BookAn Essay on the Principle of PopulationThomas Robert Malthus, 1798
Argues population outruns food supply — wrong about the outcome, right that demography and resources are one problem, and never out of the argument since.
- BookThe Presentation of Self in Everyday LifeErving Goffman, 1956
Social life is dramaturgical: people manage front-stage impressions and maintain back-stage regions where the performance relaxes.
- BookBowling AloneRobert Putnam, 2000
Documents a long decline in American associational life and argues social capital is a measurable civic resource.
Go deeper
Primary sources and full treatments.
- BookThe Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of CapitalismMax Weber, 1905
Traces capitalist discipline to a religious idea of vocation, and argues that ideas can be causes rather than only reflections of material interest.
- BookThe Second SexSimone de Beauvoir, 1949
One is not born a woman but becomes one: an analysis of how a category gets built and then treated as nature.
- BookThe Interpretation of CulturesClifford Geertz, 1973
Culture is a text to be read rather than a system to be measured, and thick description is what reading it requires.
- BookDiscipline and PunishMichel Foucault, 1975
Punishment shifted from the body to the soul, and the prison's real product is a society organised around continuous observation.
- BookDistinctionPierre Bourdieu, 1979
Taste is a marker of class position that presents itself as personal preference, and that is precisely what makes it effective.
- BookSeeing Like a StateJames C. Scott, 1998
Schemes to improve the human condition fail when they impose legibility and discard the local knowledge that made systems work.