If you want to follow up any of the issues and concepts within Anthony Giddens’ work The Open University offers a range of courses, at all levels, that touch upon the same, or similar, theoretical work.

Understanding Society (Y 157)
The course is designed to introduce you to selected key concepts and debates within the social sciences including families; culture; global markets; migrant labour; community; and social movements.

An Introduction To The Social Sciences: Understanding Social Change (DD 100 )
The social sciences are about people how they act individually and how they act collectively. This course tackles everyday issues in an approachable and accessible way, so that you can build on what you already know and draw on your own experience

Sociology & Society (DD 201)
This lively introduction to contemporary sociology contains four modules, beginning with Understanding everyday life, which illuminates everyday aspects of the social world, including the home and pub.

Making Social Worlds (DD 308)
This innovative course explores how social worlds are made, offering you an insight into the sociological approaches that can be applied to understanding everyday experience. Social worlds need to create security, produce attachment between individuals, and regulate conduct. The course considers how these needs are met through topics including immigration, medicine, family, money and reality television.

Identity In Question (D853)
Investigating recent debates in sociology, cultural theory and psychoanalysis, this course explores the nature of social identity, ‘socialisation’, subjectivity and personhood.

Further reading
If you want to find out more about Giddens’ approach to these issues, you can do so in the following key texts:

Sociological Inquiry & Structuration Theory
Capitalism and Modern Social Theory. an Analysis of the Writings of Marx, Durkheim and Max Weber. Giddens, A (1971), Cambridge : Cambridge University Press.

Central Problems in Social Theory : Action, Structure and Contradiction in Social Analysis. Giddens, A (1979), London : Macmillan.

New Rules of Sociological Method: a Positive Critique of Interpretative Sociologies. Giddens, A (1976), London : Hutchinson.

The Class Structure of the Advanced Societies.
Giddens, A (1981), London : Hutchinson.

The Constitution of Society. Outline of the Theory of Structuration. Giddens, A (1984), Cambridge : Polity

Modernity & Self Identity
Modernity and Self-Identity. Self and Society in the Late Modern Age. Giddens, A (1991), Cambridge: Polity

The Consequences of Modernity. Giddens, A (1990), Cambridge: Polity.

Contemporary Politics & Social Justice
Beyond Left and Right — the Future of Radical Politics. Giddens, A (1994), Cambridge: Polity

Runaway World London. Giddens, A (2000), Routledge

The Third Way and Its Critics. Giddens, A (2000), Cambridge: Polity

The Third Way: The Renewal Of Social Democracy. Giddens, A (1998), Cambridge: Polity

Content last updated: 13/11/2007