News

On Tuesday 27 February 2024, Dr Matthew Sparkes, Assistant Professor in Sociology, gave evidence at a parliamentary briefing on the new Mortgage Prisoner campaign. Mortgage prisoners are existing borrowers unable to switch their mortgages to a new deal, even if up-to-date with their payments. This is an important issue in the UK where short-term fi…

We are delighted to announce that Ilaria Michelis, doctoral candidate in Sociology, has won the Journal of Gender Studies Janet Blackman Prize for her paper, Contesting gender: young women and feminist generations in gender-based violence services. The Prize celebrates scholarship on international feminist movements and trade unions/women in work.I…

We are delighted to welcome Dr Jusmeet S. Sihra to the Department of Sociology as a British Academy International Fellow.  An urban and political sociologist with a deep interest in understanding caste-based inequalities rooted in space, whilst he is in Cambridge Dr Sihra will research the ways in which colonial and postcolonial state institutions …

We’re delighted to announce the winners of this year’s Polity Prizes for academic excellence in Sociology, who all receive £100 worth of books from Polity Press.The Part 1 2023 Polity Prize winner is Brad Barrass from Magdalene College who was awarded the highest mark in the SOC1 exam.  Callum MacKenzie Finnigan from Pembroke College is the winner …

The LGBTQ+ research programme, based here at the Department of Sociology has awarded the inaugural Qantabrigian Fellowship to Sandi Toksvig, the prize-winning author, broadcaster, entertainer and founder of the Women’s Equality Party. The Q+ Fellowship enables distinguished Cambridge LGBTQ+ alumni to spend time at the University to conduct a resear…

We are proud to announce the launch of the Black British Voices Project Report 2023 today, Thursday 28th September 2023, at the Houses of Parliament.  The project is a collaboration between Cambridge Sociology, the Voice newspaper and I-Cubed Consultancy. It is the largest ever research initiative conducted with Black British communities.The report…

The Department of Sociology is delighted that Professor Sarah Franklin has been awarded the Royal Society’s Wilkins-Bernal-Medawar Medal and Lecture 2023 for research related to the social function of science. The first sociologist to have won this award, she has been recognised for her research into, and advocacy for, the social aspects of new rep…

This film, created by the University of Cambridge's Film and Digital Media team, about Professor Brendan Burchell and Dr David Frayne's research, has helped to spread the word about their important work even further.Read more about this research on the world’s largest trial of a four-day working week.

LgbtQ+@Cam, the Department of Sociology, and the Centre for Gender Studies were honoured to host Professor Judith Butler’s public lecture ‘Who is Afraid of Gender?’ at West Road Concert Hall in Cambridge on Wednesday 26th April.It was a remarkable and memorable evening. Introduced by Professor Sarah Franklin, Professor Butler’s lecture was a charac…

Prof Manali Desai, Head of the Department of Sociology, University of Cambridge was quoted in The Guardian on Wednesday 8 March, reacting to the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office’s new strategy to advance gender equality around the world, launched on the same day that MPs announced plans to investigate the impact of UK aid cuts on women …

A team of Cambridge social scientists led by Prof Brendan Burchell, Department of Sociology, have been conducting research on the world’s largest trial of a four-day working week. Last year, 61 organisations in the UK committed to a 20% reduction in working hours for all staff for six months.  With no fall in wages.  The findings suggest that a fou…

This Alumni Festival 2022 panel event explored how sociology can both inform and learn from global discussions of racism and racial justice. Watch the event recording to hear Professor Manali Desai, Head of the Department of Sociology, Professor Mónica Moreno-Figueroa, Professor Ali Meghji and Dr Rachell Sánchez Rivera discuss the long trajectory o…

We are delighted to announce the results of this year’s photography competition on the theme, 'Sociology of Resistance'.Students were encouraged to be creative in their interpretation of the theme "Sociology of Resistance" and think about different ways that people "resist", by challenging institutions, power structures or social norms.You can find…

The results from the latest Research Excellence Framework (REF) have highlighted the outstanding quality and impact of Cambridge’s research in the field of Sociology. The Times Higher Education’s rankings of REF 2021 place Cambridge Sociology at #2 for research quality in UK higher education. 94% of Cambridge’s outputs submitted within the Sociolog…

We're proud to announce that Dr Ella McPherson has been awarded the 2022 Pilkington Teaching Prize in recognition of her exceptional contribution to the Sociology Department and excellence in teaching.Dr Ella McPherson is an Associate Professor in the Sociology of New Media and Digital Technology and Director of Undergraduate Education at the Depar…