BJS Prize - Shortlisted articles announced! See News and Announcements section below.
The British Journal of Sociology
Published on behalf of the London School of Economics and Political Science
Edited by:
Richard Wright
ISI Journal Citation Reports® Ranking: 2008: 12/99 Sociology
Impact Factor: 1.473
For almost 60 years The British Journal of Sociology has represented the mainstream of sociological thinking and research. Consistently ranked highly by the ISI in Sociology, this prestigious international journal publishes sociological scholarship of the highest quality on all aspects of the discipline by academics from all over the world. The British Journal of Sociology is distinguished by the commitment to excellence and scholarship one associates with its home at the London School of Economics and Political Science.
TopNews and Announcements
Read The BJS 60th Anniversary Issue - The BJS Shaping Sociology Over 60 Years
The BJS turns 60 this year. To mark this occasion the editors have chosen two articles from each of the journal's six decades that, in their view, have had a significant and enduring impact on sociology. Each of the articles is accompanied by contemporary commentary that critically assesses its legacy. While the articles chosen represent just a fraction of the many path-breaking contributions published in The BJS over the year, it is our hope that they will serve to amply demonstrate the Journal's central and longstanding role in fostering the sociological imagination. To read this Anniversary Issue, please click here.
Watch the latest BJS Public Lecture - Bringing the Penal State Back In by Loïc Wacquant
Wacquant spoke at the recent BJS Public Lecture on Tuesday 6th October at the LSE. Loïc draws on classical theory, social history, and a comparative analysis of the penalization of urban poverty in advanced societies at the century's turn to argue that we need to bring the penal state back to the centre of the sociology of social inequality, public policy and citizenship. Click here to watch the video-cast recorded at the LSE.
Violations of Human Rights and Humanitarian Law: Investigation and Prevention of Torture and Death in Custody
3-7 May 2010, Scandic Hotel Linkoping Vast, Linkoping, Sweden
For further information on this conference, please click here.
BJS Prize - Winner announced!
The BJS editors are pleased to announce the winner of the inaugural BJS Prize - Double edged swords by Claire Saunders (published in Volume 59, Issue 2).
Listen to the prize winner's podcast!
Claire Saunders talks about what motivated her to write the article. She summarises the main arguments from the paper and what it means to the study of social movements. To listen to the podcast, please click here.
To read the shortlisted articles from the BJS prize, please click on one of the links below:
Is racial prejudice declining in Britain? by Rob Ford (published in Volume 59, Issue 4);
Racism and the sociological imagination by Bob Carter and Satnam Virdee (published in Volume 59, Issue 4);
Social mobility and social capital in contemporary Britain by Yaojun Li, Mike Savage and Alan Warde article (published in Volume 59, Issue 3);
Sociology, Ethics and the Priority of the Particular: Learning from a Case Study of Genetic Deliberations by Erica Haimes and Robin Williams (published in Volume 58, Issue 3).
Volume 60, Issue 1 (March 2009) - Read the issue and watch the podcast!
The hugely popular British Journal of Sociology (BJS) 2008 Annual Public Lecture given by Professor Rob Sampson (Disparity, Diversity and Social (dis)order in the contemporary city), held at the London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE) on 21st October 2008, is now available for free online - simply click here to read this issue online today. Also appearing in this issue are the responses to Sampson's paper from Paul Gilroy, Diane E. Davis, Anthony Bottoms, Richard Sennett, Per-Olof Wikström, Sophie Body-Gendrot and Paul Wiles.
Professor Lawrence Sherman (Fellow of Darwin College, Wolfson Professor of Criminology, Director of the Jerry Lee Centre for Experimental Criminology, and Director, Police Executive Programme) comments on Professor Rob Sampson's Lecture and the BJS discussion: '...a major advance in the empirical and theoretical understanding of the links between disorder, diversity and public safety, contradicting many of the misguided premises of contemporary public policy. The Chicago evidence that there is less violence in areas with more cultural diversity and immigration could help combat the pattern of racial diversity driving people to perceive more crime, even when there is less. This could become a case of better knowledge enlightening and changing the world.'
The BJS Podcast!
This first BJS podcast is an interview chaired by Professor Richard Wright (Editor-in-Chief of BJS and Curators' Professor and Chair, Department of Criminology and Criminal Justice University of Missouri - St. Louis, USA) with two of the world's foremost urban sociologists, Professor Rob Sampson (Henry Ford II Professor of the Social Sciences and Department Chair of Sociology at Harvard University) and Professor Richard Sennett (Professor of Sociology at the London School of Economics and Political Science and the University Professor of Sociology at New York University). For further information and to watch the podcast, please click here.
Don't miss an issue of BJS! Sign up for FREE Email Table of Contents Alerts
If you would like to keep informed about the articles published in BJS, sign up to receive Email Table of Contents alerts. When a new issue is published online, you will receive an easy-to-read email with table of contents listings and links to article abstracts. Simply click here to sign up.
TopHighlights
Volume 59, Number 1 (March 2008)
The hugely popular British Journal of Sociology (BJS) 2007 Annual Public Lecture given by Judith Butler (Sexual politics, torture and secular time), held at the London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE) on 30th October 2007, is now freely available online. Also appearing in this issue is the comments on Judith Butler's paper from Chetan Bhatt, Suki Ali, James A. Beckford, Tariq Modood and Linda Woodhead. Judith Butler's response to these comments will be published in Volume 59, Number 2 (June 2008.)
Please click here to read this issue online.
Volume 59, Number 2 (June 2008)
In this June issue of BJS (Volume 59, Number 2) Judith Butler responds to the comments from Chetan Bhatt, Suki Ali, James A. Beckford, Tariq Modood and Linda Woodhead published in Volume 59, Number 1 (March 2008). Please click here to read this article online.
Virtual Issue
Secularization, Individualization and Modernization - click here to access.
A forum for debate - driving sociology forward
The British Journal of Sociology raises questions and invites discussion on the crucial issues facing sociology today, through a series of papers and live events. Subjects addressed by BJS include:
Sociology and Political Arithmetic
Leading sociologists and practitioners debate the place of sociology in contemporary policy making.
Contributions to this debate are published in issues 55/1, 55/3 and 56/2
Public Sociology
A global discussion stimulated by Michael Burawoy's ASA Presidential Address.
Originally published in American Sociological Review 70/1. Reprinted in BJS 56/2. Responses published in BJS 56/3.
Cosmopolitan Sociology
Led by a special issue edited by Ulrich Beck and Natan Sznaider.
Published as issue 57/1.
Public Intellectuals and British Sociology
The Annual BJS Lecture, given by Bryan S. Turner in October 2005.
Published as issue 57/2.
Publishing leading authors from across the globe…
Distinguished contributors in the early years included Raymond Aron, Reinhard Bendix, David Glass, Seymour Martin Lipset, Richard Titmuss, Talcott Parsons, Hans Eysenck, Jean Floud, Hilda Himmelweit, David Lockwood and A.H. Halsey.
More recently, the BJS has published Norbert Elias, Gary Runciman, John H. Goldthorpe, Michael Mann, Anthony Smith, Nicos Mouzelis, Ray Pahl, Gordon Marshall, Sylvia Walby, Duncan Gallie, Catherine Hakim, Bryan S. Turner, John Urry and Andre Beteille, Rosemary Crompton, Gabrielle Meagher, Wendy Bottero.
Increasingly, it draws contributions from leading international scholars such as Manuel Castells, Immanuel Wallerstein, Goran Therborn, Gosta Esping-Andersen, Ulrich Beck, Bruno Latour, Saskia Sassen, Richard Erickson, John A Hall, Judy Wajcman.
TopEndorsements
Comments on The British Journal of Sociology
'The BJS is an important resource for scholars across the globe, consistently on the sophisticated forefront of the discipline's intellectual development.'
Harvey Molotch, Professor of Sociology and Metropolitan Studies, New York University, USA
'The BJS has long been one of the world's leading sociological journals. I especially value it for the variety of its articles, reminding us that sociology is an essentially diverse discipline, dominated by no single methodological or theoretical paradigm.'
Michael Mann, Professor of Sociology, University of California, Los Angeles, USA
'The British Journal of Sociology has a unique reputation for being at once innovative and high-powered, theoretically aware yet empirically aware. It deserves its large readership.'
John A. Hall, McGill University, Canada
'BJS is a truly first class journal, and anyone who wants to know what is happening in sociology does well to follow it closely. Through its consistent policy of publishing articles that are theoretically challenging and empirically sound, BJS adds to the sociological tradition, issue by issue.'
Richard Swedberg, Cornell University, USA
'Long one of the world's leading sociology journals, The BJS has become increasingly international. It is especially important for articles that speak not only to sociology's scattered subfields but to the discipline as a whole. It deserves a wide American readership.'
Craig Calhoun, Professor of Sociology, New York University and President of the Social Science Research Council, USA
'The BJS is known throughout the world as one of the preeminent journals of sociology. It bridges American and European sociological traditions and is at the forefront of new debates.'
Judy Wajcman, Professor of Sociology, Australian National University, Australia
'The British Journal of Sociology provides the sociological community with leading-edge theoretical and empirical research articles by a broad range of international sociologists. Not afraid of controversy, The BJS continues to reflect the breadth of sociological concerns in contemporary societies. The BJS is essential reading for sociologists whatever their specialist interests - throughout the spectrum from undergraduates to professors of international reknown.
Professor Sara Arber, President, British Sociological Association, 1999-2001. Department of Sociology, University of Surrey, Guildford, UK
In an increasingly crowded and competitive journals market, the BJS is indisuptably one of the pillars of social scientific rigour and excellence. It fully deserves its reputation as one of the top sociological journals.
Gosta Esping-Andersen, Pompeu Fabra University, Barcelona, Spain
'The British Journal of Sociology has for many years been fundamental to the development of British social science, defining its contours and contents andsetting a standard of scholarly excellence. Comprehensive in coverage, it is essential reading for sociologists.'
Bryan S. Turner, Professor of Sociology, Deakin University, Australia and Essex University, UK
