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Public Sociology

Series Editors: John Brewer, Senator George J Mitchell Institute for Global Peace, Security and Justice, Queen's University, Belfast, Northern Ireland and Neil McLaughlin, Department of Sociology, McMaster University, Ontario, Canada

This series addresses public and community engagement and the relationship between sociologists and their publics. The books in the series explore not only what sociologists do, but what sociology is for and focus on the commitment to enhance understanding of the social condition so that the lives of people are materially improved.

The series showcases the wide diversity of sociological research that addresses the many global challenges that threaten the future of humankind in the 21st century. The relevance of sociology to what C. Wright Mills preferred to call the human condition is highlighted in works that address these challenges as they feature in global social changes, but also as they are mediated in local and regional communities and settings. The series thus features titles that work at a global level of abstraction, as well as studies that are micro-ethnographic depictions of global processes as they affect local communities

Download the proposal guidelines.

Topics may include but are not limited to the following

  • What is public sociology?
  • Engaging policy in sociology
  • Empowering people for drive change
  • Sociology of the future
  • Social justice under neo-liberalism
  • Building social justice from below
  • Refugees, migrants and the humanitarian crisis
  • Is humanitarianism in crisis?
  • Peace studies in crisis?
  • War and militarism
  • Rethinking the public university
  • Debating and re-envisioning the family?
  • Is health a human right?
  • The sociological geography of health and wealth
  • Food security and global hunger
  • Sociology and human dignity
  • The future of social media
  • Is multi-culturalism working?
  • The future of class
  • Intersectionality and inequality
  • Sociology and climate change
  • Religion in the 21st century
  • Transformation in work
  • What is the future of housing?
  • Modern masculinities
  • Sociology outside academia
  • What is the future of youth?
  • The gender agenda in the 21st century
  • Social harm and intergenerational memory
  • Rethinking community for the 21st century
  • Developing co-produced knowledge with communities
  • Human rights versus human dignity in disability research
  • Does social mobility have a future?


Call for proposals:

If you would like to submit a proposal, or to discuss ideas, then please contact the series editors: John Brewer: j.brewer@qub.ac.uk and Neil McLaughlin: nmclaugh@mcmaster.ca.

Find out more about writing for Bristol University Press on our Information for authors page.

International editorial advisory board: