| Actor-network theory |
| Boundary object theory |
| Bourdieu’s theory of distinction |
| Bureaucracy (Weber) |
| Class theories |
| Cognitive dissonance |
| Communication theory |
| Critical race, decolonial and post-colonial theories |
| Demographic transition theory |
| Dependency and modernization theories of development |
| Deviance and labelling theory |
| Dirt as ‘matter out of place’ (Mary Douglas) |
| Dramaturgical theory (Goffman) |
| Emergent norm theory of mass behaviour |
| Feminist legal theory |
| Feminist technoscience theory |
| Feminist theory |
| Game theory |
| Gender theory |
| Governmentality (Foucault) |
| Grid and group analysis (Mary Douglas) |
| Hegemonic masculinity |
| historical materialism (Marx/Hegel) |
| In- and out-groups |
| Institutional racism/sexism/homophobia |
| Inter- and intra- generational mobility |
| Neo-classical management theory (human relations) |
| Protestant ethic and capitalism (Weber) |
| Rational choice theory |
| Reciprocity and ‘the gift’ (Mauss) |
| Relational-cultural theory (psychological & feminist) |
| Sapir-Whorf hypothesis |
| Sick role (functionalist theory of illness) |
| Social comparison theory |
| Social exchange theory |
| Social identity theory |
| Social shaping of technology |
| Sociobiology and evolutionary psychology |
| Stigma (Goffman) |
| Structural functionalist theory (Parsons, Davis/Moore) |
| Structural strain theory (Merton) |
| Systems approach to organisation |
| Systems of thought/discourses (Foucault) |
| Theories of ageing (Activity theory; disengagement theory; ageism) |
| Theories of professions (Parsons, Freidson) |
| Theories of socialisation |
| Theory of scientific management (Taylor) |
| Theory of self (Mead) |
| Thomas theorem |
| Urban ecology |
| Work/life (im)balance |