What does it mean for the social sciences to take colonialism seriously – not just as an issue of the past, but in terms of its continuing consequences in the present? While calls to decolonize the curriculum are increasing, few resources show what this means in terms of the everyday categories and concepts of the social sciences. This textbook addresses that gap by rethinking key themes―migration, citizenship, inequality, and the environment―through a critical engagement with colonial histories.
Developed from the Connected Sociologies Curriculum Project (CSCP) and written by scholars committed to transforming their teaching and research, the book challenges long-standing assumptions and provides practical, classroom-ready resources. It enables teachers and students to approach familiar topics from new angles, opening space for more rigorous and inclusive debates.
Pedagogical and distinctive features include:
• Structured chapters with learning objectives, summaries, discussion questions, and reading lists;
• Thematic case studies that complement conceptual chapters;
• Links to rich digital resources, including videos and teaching tools from CSCP, Global Social Theory, and Discover Society;
• Ready-made materials adaptable for undergraduate and sixth-form teaching.
Together, they make an essential guide for anyone seeking to broaden the scope and depth of social science education.
John Holmwood is Professor of Sociology at the University of Nottingham. From 2012 to 2014, he was President of the British Sociological Association and in 2014/15, he was Member of the Institute for Advanced Study, Princeton, USA. He acted as an Expert Witness to the Court in the National College for Teaching and Leadership hearings against teachers arising from the Trojan Horse affair.
Dr Sundari Anitha is Reader at the School of Social and Political Sciences, University of Lincoln. She has researched and written on forced marriage, marriage migrants’ experiences of domestic violence, transnational abandonment of women, dowry-related violence, sex selective abortion, gender-based violence in university communities and South Asian women’s industrial militancy in the UK. She previously managed a Women’s Aid refuge and worked for Asha Projects, a specialist refuge for South Asian survivors of domestic violence and has been active in campaigns and policy-making to combat violence against women and girls since 1999.
Karim Murji is a Professor based in the Graduate School at the University of West London and was previously at the Open University, UK. He has written widely on culture, ethnicity and racism as applied to fields such as race equality, policing, public sociology, and diaspora and identity. Since 2013 he has been part of the editorial team of Sociology, and, with Sarah Neal, he is the Editor of Current Sociology.
Kayleigh Garthwaite is Associate Professor in the Department of Social Policy, Sociology and Criminology at the University of Birmingham.
Gurminder K. Bhambra is Professor of Historical Sociology at the University of Sussex.
