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The Department of Sociology at LSE was the first to be established in Britain and has played a key role in establishing and developing the discipline - nationally and internationally - since 1904. Today the Department has around 25 teaching staff, together with a number of research fellows, visiting professors and visiting scholars from all over the world.
The Department is committed to empirically rich, conceptually sophisticated, and socially and politically relevant research and scholarship, building upon the traditions of the discipline, and playing a key role in the development of the social sciences into the new intellectual areas, social problems, and ethical dilemmas that face a globalised post-modern society. See our vision statement |(PDF).
Research
Sociology at LSE is theoretically and methodologically diverse, but our research priorities focus upon the following key areas:
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Human Rights, Citizenship and Social Justice: transitional justice, theories of rights, justifications of rights, denial of atrocities, race and rights, human rights in the context of biotechnology and bio-ethics and in new forms of legal regulation, human rights and security, war and terror.
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Cities: the nature, transformations and implications of the spatial, social and cultural relations of cities, in a global context.
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Economy and Society: the sociology of money, markets and finance, of consumption and production, of industry, management, work and employment, in an international and comparative context, especially in relation to issues of globalisation. The economic, social, political, and cultural implications of new forms of communication, particularly information technologies.
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Politics and Society: the social, economic, institutional and ideological bases of politics, and the interaction of states and societies. Social and political movements, especially the comparative, historical and contemporary study of labour movements and the left. Political power and ideas. Political and economic democracy. International regulation and risk. Fundamental social and political change.
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Race, Racism and Ethnicity: the social, cultural and governmental aspects of colonial and postcolonial societies. Nationalism, challenges and transformations in geo-politics, governance and citizenship in an era characterised by migration, flight, asylum, multiculture, cultural hybridity, cosmopolitanism and supposed 'civilisational' conflict.
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Crime Culture and Control: criminological theory, criminal cultures, organisations and markets, victimology, criminal investigation, the changing nature of crime, alcohol and public disorder, punishment and control, the relationship between privatised control strategies and urban regeneration, gender and social control, the emergence of cross border criminal activity, violence.
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Biomedicine, Bioscience, Biotechnology: the new social, political, legal and ethical challenges facing individuals and society in the era of biotechnology, biomedicine and genomics.
Study
The Department of Sociology aims to provide a teaching and learning environment in which students are encouraged to think critically and independently. We recognise that many of the key issues in the discipline worldwide are the subject of contestation, and our teaching aims to equip students to understand and evaluate these disputes and adopt a position in relation to them. Rigorous, critical, independent thought is the most transferable skill of all, and the overarching objective of the learning experience we provide to our students.
The Department of Sociology at LSE welcomes and values the racial, ethnic, religious, national and cultural diversity of all its students, staff, alumni and visitors. The Department believes in equal treatment based on merit and encourages a learning environment based on mutual respect and dialogue.
As well as the BSc in Sociology, the Department offers MSc programmes in Sociology, Sociology (Research), Sociology (Contemporary Social Thought), Sociology (Economic Sociology), Political Sociology, Bioscience, Biomedicine and Society (to 2012), Culture and Society, Race, Ethnicity and Post-Colonial Studies, and from 2012 an MSc in International Migration and Public Policy (with the Department of Government). There is also a thriving doctoral programme in Sociology.
The Department also offers an MSc in Human Rights, with the Centre for the Study of Human Rights.
The Department houses the Cities Programme|, an international centre dedicated to the understanding of contemporary urban society. Its central objective is to relate physical structure to the social structure of cities. It offers an MSc in City Design and Social Science and a PhD programme. Students get the opportunity to work with leading urban faculty across LSE and meet eminent urban scholars and practitioners in masterclasses and workshops.
The Department has a total of over 300 students: approximately 110 undergraduate students; 150 taught postgraduates following our MSc programmes; and some 60 research postgraduates. In addition, many students following degrees in other departments take our courses.
Research centres
LSE Sociology supports and promotes academic diversity within the School through its central participation in interdisciplinary research and in particular its close relationship with the Centre for the Study of Human Rights, the Methodology Institute, the Interdisciplinary Institute of Management, STICERD (the Suntory Toyota International Centres for Economics and Related Disciplines), the Mannheim Centre for the Study of Crime and Criminal Justice, and the Department of Media and Communications.
All students studying religion in the department have access to the resources of INFORM: Information Network Focus on Religious Movements, an independent charity initiated within the Department of Sociology which is based at LSE and provides information about new and/or alternative religious movements.
LSE Cities, founded in 2010, builds on the interdisciplinary work of the Urban Age programme, an international investigation of cities around the world.
For more information see links below:
Journals
The Department is home to several international journals, including The British Journal of Sociology| - one of the world's leading Sociology periodicals; Economy and Society, the UK's leading interdisciplinary social science journal; BioSocieties, an innovative new journal in the social sciences, dedicated to advancing analytic understanding of the social, ethical, legal, economic, public policy aspects of current and emerging developments in the life sciences; and the Journal of Consumer Culture.