Sociology on the Web

I’ve been spending a bit of time today looking for sociology resources on the net. See below.

OK, many of you will already know about these links, but not everyone does so here goes. But first, I must say, its hard to find any really, really good SocBlogs (I hope present company is excluded). There are a lot which just seem to peter out - shows how hard it is to write regularly. There are a lot which are people sounding off on this or that and at far too much length. I was hoping to find the sort of stuff that my colleague Geoff seems able to find with ease for economics, i.e. commentary. Of course, there are disciplinary, academic issues here perhaps, the state of sociology and all that. There seems to be a rich vein of economic commentary available on the web, so its a shame there is little by way of sociological, socio-political commentary. Maybe sociology gets by-passed as the mainstream political blogs hog the road? Isn’t there a need - or at least a space - for ‘public intellectuals’ from sociology participating in public debate?

So for the moment, out of a load of possibles, I’ll just highlight these. More will follow when I’ve had a bit longer to reflect.

UN Crime and Justice Information Network

Some interesting looking stats which give a different take than the usual ONS stuff.

http://www.uncjin.org/Statistics/statistics.html

Joseph Rowntree Foundation

The JRF seems to be a lone voice, shouting into the wind about inequality. There is some great stuff here - use it.

http://www.jrf.org.uk/

ESRC

Not bad, but in a way this typifies my gloom above. A lot of websites for social science are institutional and therefore their key aim seems to be, reasonably enough in a way, to promote their org. However, the ESRC does a reasonable job of promoting the social sciences - and not just sociology either. There is some good stuff on their site.

http://www.esrc.ac.uk/ESRCInfoCentre/index.aspx

ATSS

I imagine everyone reading this will know of the ATSS - Association for the Teaching of the Social Sciences, but I can’t leave them out. The ATSS does a good job for teachers and students. They have a fairly long list of links to resources - many are useful, teacher produced things, and therefore quite handy.

http://www.le.ac.uk/se/centres/ATSS/atss.html