Skip to content

Sociology research

Sociologically orientated research at NTU spans a range of topics and academic staff are affiliated to several of the University’s Research Centres, including the Nottingham Centre for Children, Young People and Families, and the Centre for Behavioural Research Methods.

Overview

Research contact: Associate Professor Jane Pilcher

Sociologically orientated research at NTU spans a range of topics and academic staff are affiliated to several of the University’s Research Centres, including the Nottingham Centre for Children, Young People and Families, and the Centre for Behavioural Research Methods.

Research in the subject area of Sociology is concerned with critically examining, both empirically and theoretically, the complex interrelations of multiple social and cultural processes shaping people’s identities, experiences and opportunities in contemporary societies. Our research spans a range of topics, unified by a shared ethos of using sociology to promote social and democratic inclusion and transformation at local, national and global levels.

Much of our research is conducted in partnership with, or on behalf of, external partners including voluntary sector organisations, local authorities, trade unions, and other universities. Independent and collaborative research by PhD, Masters, and undergraduate students forms an integral part of our work.

Groups

Sociologists at NTU are lead members of three research groups. The Work Futures Research Group brings together academics across the School of Social Sciences to address some of the most challenging issues raised by the rapidly changing world of work and employment.

The Gender Research Group aims to promote social and democratic inclusion and transformation at global, national and local levels through critical examination of the myriad ways gender matters in shaping people’s identities, experiences and opportunities.

The Identity, Territory and Social Justice Research Group, driven by a commitment to social justice, engages in evidence-based and theoretically-informed research that seeks to explore, problematise and transform the socio-political phenomena shaping peoples’ lives.

Current research

Current and recent research by sociologists at NTU includes:

  • Precarious work and employment
  • Human rights
  • Cities, including sustainable cities and human rights cities
  • Critical and Sociological theory
  • Borders and migration
  • Place, community and health
  • Critical public sociology
  • Trans-disciplinary perspectives of ‘career’
  • Critical pedagogy and service learning
  • Digital technologies and identities
  • Social and material transformations in late modernity
  • Cultural representations of non-human animals
  • Critical exploration of sociologically informed psychotherapy
  • Gender and sexuality, including LGBQ+ student
  • experiences
  • Names, identities and family relations

Potential supervisors

Find out more about some of the potential supervisors of PhD students in Sociology:

Find a PhD opportunity