Mike’s work concentrates on the analysis of long-term social change. Drawing on a strong historical sensitivity (indebted to his initial training in history), he is sceptical of ‘hyperbolic’ or ‘presentist’ sociology, such as claims that we have moved into some kind of new ‘epoch’ of social life. His book Identities and Social Change in Britain since 1940: the politics of method (2010) argues that we need to place our understanding of the contemporary in the context of detailed historical research. Recently he has focused on how wealth accumulation is a key driver of social change, an argument he has elaborated in his book The Return of Inequality: social change and the weight of the past (2021).
This perspective has led him to be a leader in the revival of the sociology of elites, where he investigates how increasing elite power and prominence is a fundamental force that is reshaping social inequalities, including older class relationships. He is currently editing a definitive Handbook on the Sociology of Global Elites with Annette Lareau and Maria-Luisa Mendez.
This interest in understanding how intensified economic inequalities are transforming class inequality underpinned Mike’s leadership of the BBC’s Great British Class Survey, which spawned one of the most popular piece of digital sociology ever (with 9 million hits on the BBC’s ‘class calculator’). His co-authored book Social class in the 21st Century which argues that older models of class which focused on the divide between middle and working class have been eclipsed by an elite class pulling away at the top, and greater fragmentation in the middle levels of the social structure, has been a bestseller.
A further element of Mike’s interest in wealth inequality is concerned with excavating the importance of the racial wealth divide, where he is conducting collaborative research in the UK and South Africa. Mike explores how intense wealth inequalities between differing racialised groups can be traced back to older imperial forms of domination and extraction, and he is now working on a collaborative book to draw out these themes.
Mike is committed to relating structural aspects of inequality with understandings of how inequalities are experienced ‘on the ground’. This leads him to long term engagements with the writings of Pierre Bourdieu, the most sophisticated sociologist to have addressed this issue. With Tony Bennett, Elizabeth Silva and Alan Warde directed the most comprehensive study of cultural capital and taste ever conducted in the UK, which was published in 2008 as Culture, Class, Distinction. This has attracted considerable international interest and influenced numerous studies on the cultural aspects of inequality. In Class Analysis and Social Transformation (2000) he has written about the ‘paradox of class’: that as economic inequality intensifies, so popular awareness of class seems to wane. He is fascinated by the challenge posed by the ‘cultural turn’ in sociology and remain attracted to elements of Pierre Bourdieu’s sociology as a means of making sense of these paradoxical situations.
Mike has long standing interests in recognising the significance of spatiality and temporality in social science. He has long standing interests in urban sociology, including his book Globalisation and Belonging (with Gaynor Bagnall and Brian Longhurst, 2005) which emphasised how globalisation might be congruent with increasing localised attachments. His text book Urban Sociology, Capitalism and Modernity (with Alan Warde and Kevin Ward, 2003) has been a best seller.
Mike sees rigorous research methods as fundamental to sociological inquiry and is especially interested in using innovative and mixed methods. He has applied sequencing methods, social network analysis, and multiple correspondence analysis in his work. His paper with Roger Burrows proclaiming ‘The coming crisis of empirical sociology’ in 2007 provoked huge interest through its claim that sociology could no longer rely on its tried and trusted repertoire of sample surveys and qualitative interviews in an increasingly digitalised world – but in fact he is also an inveterate user of such methods. He has recently been working with Jane Elliott, Carrie Friese, and an international collaborative team to develop large scale qualitative research initiatives.
Although highly inter-disciplinary in orientation, Mike has an outstanding track record in supporting the discipline of Sociology. Between 1993 and 2016 he was on the Editorial Board of The Sociological Review, where he was editor between 2001 and 2007, and as Chair of the Editorial Board between 2011 and 2016 oversaw its transition into a fully recognised charity. He was a member of the Sociology research evaluation exercises (RAE 2008 and REF 2013) and a trustee of the British Sociological Association (2017-19). He collaborates extensively with civil society and campaigning organisations and was a trustee of the Young Foundation (2017-20).
