Sociology Films

This section features a range of Sociology films to enhance teaching and learning.
Click any film to see more information about it.

Sociology Film Club

Designed to enhance the teaching of A-level Sociology, an annual subscription to the Film Club gives you unlimited access to all of our Sociology films

Media and Aggression

Media Effects: Can we learn aggression from aggressive media? This film looks at experimental, longitudinal and case study research evidence and how social learning, script

Unmasking: The End of Debate?

Sociological Theory: Unmasking is an extreme form of criticism that is becoming increasingly prevalent in social science and everyday discourse where individuals are accused of

Making Friends with Research Methods

Research Methods: Understanding research methods isn’t easy for many students and, strange-to-say, a lot of them also find it boring. This film uses different techniques

Introducing Triangulation

Research Methods: All research strategies, practices and methods have their limitations and the most common way of trying to offset these limitations is by using

Case Studies

Research Methods: If you go and see your doctor or a therapist, you’ll become a ‘case’ to them. They’ll want to know a lot more

Participant Observation

Research Methods: Some research questions can only really be studied by sociologists getting out of their offices and interacting directly with the people they want

Secularisation: The Decline of Religion?

Religion and Beliefs: With contributions from leading experts on the study of religion, this film gives students a new take on secularisation theory. While secularisation

Religion: what it is and what it does

Religion and Beliefs: Ask a hundred people what they think religion is and you’ll probably get a hundred different answers. However, to study religion we

Hate Crime in Everyday Life

Crime and Deviance: Hate Crime is high profile now. But the cases of violent hate crime we see in the media are just the tip

Durkheim and the Functions of Crime

Crime and Deviance: It seems obvious to most people that crime and social order are opposites. But more than a century ago French sociologist Emile

Crime and the Night-Time Economy

Crime and Deviance: The concept of social control is an important one in the sociology of crime and deviance and this short film, featuring contributions

Crimes of the Powerful

Crime and Deviance: This short film illustrates how crimes committed by powerful social actors differ in terms of both: type – the distinction between white-collar,

Moral Panics

Crime and Deviance: This film examines the concepts of moral panic and deviancy amplification through both a classic – Stan Cohen talking about the origins

Crime and Gender: Closing the Gap

Crime and Deviance: The most consistent finding in the study of crime is the relationship between crime and gender. In almost every country, over 80%

Strain Theory

Crime and Deviance: Robert Merton was one of the first sociologists to look at the relationship between culture and crime and this film provides a

Space, Place and (Broken) Windows

Crime and Deviance: Spatial criminology asks whether it’s possible to reduce crime by changing social spaces. This short film featuring Dr Steven Taylor, begins with

The Cannibal on Bus 1170

Crime and Deviance: In 2008, Vincent Li murdered and then cannibalised 22 year old Tim McLean on a Greyhound Bus heading for Winnipeg. And the

Labelling Theory

Crime and Deviance: Traditionally criminology focused on criminal action and its control, but in the 1960’s Labelling Theory widened the focus to include the social

Childhood and New Technology

Family and Social Change Series: This film explores some of the ways new communication technologies and surveillance software impact on ideas of children and childhood

The End of Childhood?

Family and Social Change Series: Is childhood disappearing in contemporary societies? This film uses Jane Pilcher’s contemporary case study on fashion and the sexualisation of

Family and Social Change

Family and Social Chanage Series: To what extent are recent changes in family life a reflection of wider social changes in late modern societies? In

Family Diversity

Family and Social Change Series: In this film Dr Steven Taylor examines family diversity through a range of measures – including marriage, divorce, cohabitation and

Sociology and Common Sense

Introducing Sociology Series: Does Sociology go beyond commonsense and, if so, how? Dr Steven Taylor addresses this question by: introducing students to some key principles

Social Constructionism

Introducing Sociology Series: This film introduces the key concept of social construction and looks at how cultures teach us to see the world in certain

Identity

Introducing Sociology Series: In this activity-based film Dr Steven Taylor looks at the interaction between the individual and society through the concept of identity, with

What Is Sociology?

Introducing Sociology Series: In this short film Dr Steven Taylor provides a concise and accessible introduction to sociology for students new to the subject. It