The demise of Grand Theory?
Thinking Allowed
BBC
4.4 • 997 Ratings
🗓️ 25 February 2026
⏱️ 28 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
What explains the apparent decline of grand theory in sociology, and what does this shift mean for the discipline today? Laurie Taylor asks whether sociologists are now less inclined to engage with large, overarching theoretical frameworks, and explores the reasons behind this change.
He is joined by Professor Les Back (University of Glasgow) and Professor Imogen Tyler (University of Lancaster), who consider whether theory still resonates within contemporary sociology and, if so, which thinkers remain most influential. Who are the discipline’s most cited theorists today, and which grand figures - such as Marx, Weber, Durkheim and Foucault - continue to shape sociological thought?
It may be argued that theory remains stronger within feminist and women’s studies traditions, but what does this suggest about long‑standing questions concerning the gendered character of theory itself?
Laurie Taylor and guests set out to consider which new or emerging theoretical approaches offer fresh ways of understanding familiar social phenomena, and whether they signal a transformation in the discipline or simply a reworking of older sociological concerns.
Producer: Natalia Fernandez
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | BBC Sounds, Music, Radio, Podcasts. |
| 0:07.0 | I'm no longer ravenous. I'll no longer eat until I fall asleep. |
| 0:11.0 | The Hunger Game, a new five-part series exploring the meteoric rise of weight loss drugs. |
| 0:16.0 | It's been an incredible story with these drugs. |
| 0:18.1 | The uptake, the amount of product that's been sold, the amount of money |
| 0:21.2 | is cost. What the drugs do, how they work, and the knock-on effects of their widespread use. |
| 0:26.5 | We'll be sitting here in three years' time going, oh, it caused problems that we're now going |
| 0:31.3 | to have to fix. The Hunger Game with me, Professor Gilesio. Listen first on BBC Sounds. |
| 0:38.1 | This is a Thinking Aloud podcast from the BBC, and for more details and much, much more about |
| 0:44.5 | thinking aloud, go to our website at BBC.co.com.com. |
| 0:49.8 | Hello, since Thinking Aloud first landed on Radio 4 back in 1998, there's been one area of social science that's been somewhat poorly served. |
| 1:02.4 | Because of the attractiveness of small, fact-based observational research, we've left little space for consideration of, well, of large-scale sociological theory, |
| 1:14.0 | little time for, well, Marx and class conflict, Max Weber on religion and bureaucracy, |
| 1:20.3 | Emil Dirkheim on suicide, talk at Parsons on social systems. |
| 1:25.6 | But even while acknowledging these emissions, |
| 1:28.6 | I wonder if they might be paralysed |
| 1:30.3 | by a general retreat from big global theory |
| 1:34.3 | among social scientists in general. |
| 1:37.5 | Has the attractiveness of small-scale, |
| 1:40.8 | empirical and observational studies, |
| 1:43.7 | studies say into the noises one might hear in prison, |
| 1:47.6 | inquiries into the bus journeys taken by people with dementia in Manchester, detailed |
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