How researchers study those on the margins of society
A lot of sociology happens in places most people don’t see, don’t visit, or would rather not think about: gang territories, homeless encampments, stigmatised sexual cultures, institutions that control people’s lives, and communities under intense surveillance. Researchers go there because that’s often where power shows itself most clearly.
But researching the margins creates big dilemmas. To get honest data, sociologists may need deep trust, long-term immersion, or even covert methods. That raises questions about:
- Ethics (consent, harm, deception, confidentiality)
- Practicalities (access, safety, legality, cost, emotional impact)
- Theory (what counts as “truth”: statistics, lived experience, meanings?)
In this article, we look at 20 sociological studies that examined the lives of those on the edge of society.
1. John Howard Griffin – Black Like Me (1961)
Griffin, a white American journalist using immersive fieldwork, changed his appearance to “pass” as Black and travelled through the segregated US South. His aim was to understand racism not as an abstract belief, but as an everyday system of exclusion: where you can eat, sleep, work, travel, and how strangers treat you. The power of the study is its focus on ordinary interactions—stares, insults, refusals, threats—which show how racism is enforced socially as well as legally.
This is research on the margins because it centres the lived reality of a group pushed outside full citizenship under segregation. It also shows the risks of fieldwork: Griffin faced hostility and danger, and after publication he received serious threats. Yet the study is controversial. Critics argue it relies on deception, and that someone who can “return” to privilege can never fully know lifelong oppression. Even so, it remains a gripping example of sociology’s core question: how does society organise inequality in everyday life?
2. James Patrick – A Glasgow Gang Observed (1973)
Using a pseudonym, “Patrick” embedded himself with a violent youth gang in Glasgow. His aim was to understand gang culture from the inside: why boys fought, what loyalty meant, how reputation worked, and how poverty and status shaped behaviour. He entered the group via a former pupil who acted as a gatekeeper and informal protector. The result is a rare view of gang life as a social world with rules, not just “mindless violence”.
This is sociology on the margins because it involved close contact with serious violence and criminal activity. Patrick faced constant risk: if members suspected he wasn’t “one of them,” he could be attacked. He also faced ethical dilemmas: witnessing harm, hearing plans, and staying silent to maintain access. Covert research created validity—boys behaved naturally—but it also meant no informed consent. His eventual withdrawal shows the emotional cost of fieldwork: immersion can pull researchers into identities and loyalties that clash with their values.
3. Sudhir Venkatesh – Gang Leader for a Day (2008)
Venkatesh entered Chicago’s Robert Taylor Homes intending to study urban poverty, but found himself negotiating access with a drug gang. Over years of immersion, he observed the gang not only as criminals but as an organisation: rules, roles, income flows, discipline, and relationships with residents. A key sociological point is that when the state withdraws (jobs, housing support, trustable policing), alternative institutions can emerge—even if they are violent and illegal.
This is marginal research because it happens in spaces most outsiders fear: heavily policed, high-poverty estates marked by danger and stigma. It’s controversial because long-term access can look like closeness or complicity. If a researcher witnesses illegal activity, what’s their responsibility? Reporting can end fieldwork and endanger participants; silence can look like collusion. Venkatesh’s account also raises a “representation” issue: does making gang members relatable humanise marginalised people—or risk normalising harm? Either way, it’s a brilliant hook for discussing ethics, power, and survival economies.
4. Alice Goffman – On the Run (2014)
Goffman lived for years in a poor, heavily policed Black neighbourhood, studying how warrants, surveillance, and fear of arrest reshape everyday life. Her key argument is that punishment isn’t just “in prison”; it spills into daily routines. People avoid hospitals, jobs, schools, and even funerals because contact with institutions can trigger arrest. That changes relationships too: families can become “risks,” because police use connections to track suspects.
This is sociology on the margins because it treats criminalisation as a lived environment. The controversy is intense. Critics questioned the accuracy of some claims and argued that parts of the narrative may be difficult to verify. Others raised ethical and legal concerns about how close a researcher can get to illegal activity without crossing a line. Supporters argue that ethnography is meant to reveal hidden realities that official data cannot capture. Whether students agree or not, On the Run is perfect for debating validity, ethics, and the politics of telling stories about marginalised communities.
Goffman is the daughter of Erving Goffman, adopted daughter of William Labov (after Goffman’s death).
5. Laud Humphreys – Tearoom Trade (1970)
Humphreys studied anonymous sexual encounters between men in public toilets (“tearooms”) at a time when homosexuality was heavily stigmatised and often criminalised. His aim was to challenge stereotypes about who participated and why, and to show how social control and secrecy shape sexual behaviour. He argued that moral condemnation often rests on myths rather than evidence.
This is marginal research because it focuses on a hidden, criminalised sexual culture. It is also a classic “what not to do” ethically. Humphreys used covert observation and later traced participants to interview them without their informed consent. The controversy isn’t just “deception”—it’s the potential harm: exposure could have cost people jobs, families, and safety. Yet the study is still taught because it forces a hard question: if a behaviour is hidden due to stigma, can it be researched ethically at all? It’s an ideal case for students to practise balancing validity against rights and harm.
Suggested image: book cover; abstract image representing privacy/surveillance.
6. Paul Willis – Learning to Labour (1977)
Willis followed a group of working-class boys in a UK school and into early employment, exploring how class inequality reproduces itself. He found the boys developed an anti-school culture that mocked authority and valued toughness and banter. Ironically, this “resistance” helped steer them toward manual labour, reproducing the very class position they felt trapped in.
This is marginal sociology because it takes seriously young people who are often dismissed as “troublemakers.” Instead of blaming them individually, Willis connects identity, masculinity, schooling, and labour markets. The controversy lies in interpretation and ethics. He reports sexism and racism within the group and is sometimes accused of describing it without strong enough critique. There’s also the researcher-role problem: when you witness harm (bullying, harassment), do you intervene or observe? Learning to Labour is brilliant for showing how culture and structure interact—how inequality is lived, joked about, defended, and normalised.
Suggested image: book cover; 1970s classroom scene.
7. Howard Becker – Outsiders (1963)
Becker argued that deviance is not something a person “is,” but something society labels. He studied groups like marijuana users and dance musicians, showing how rule-breaking becomes meaningful through social reaction: policing, stigma, exclusion, and the formation of subcultures. Instead of asking “Why are they deviant?”, Becker asks “Who gets labelled deviant, by whom, and with what consequences?”
This is marginal research because it treats stigmatised groups as worthy of understanding, not moral panic. The controversy is political: critics claim labelling theory “excuses” wrongdoing or blames society instead of individuals. Becker’s approach also unsettles authority because it suggests institutions can create deviance by overreacting. This study is hugely useful for teaching how power shapes definitions of “normal” and “criminal.” It also helps students see why sociologists may sound like they’re “taking sides”: sometimes explaining a marginalised group looks like defending them—especially when the dominant story is condemnation.
Suggested image: book cover; photo representing “labels” or “outsider” status.
8. Annette Lareau – Unequal Childhoods (2003; updated 2011)
Lareau observed families across social classes to show how inequality is built into everyday parenting. Middle-class parents often practise “concerted cultivation”: organised activities, negotiation with adults, and confidence dealing with schools and professionals. Working-class and poor parents often focus on “natural growth”: care, protection, and more unstructured time. The point is not that one group “loves their kids more,” but that institutions reward middle-class styles, giving their children hidden advantages.
This is marginal sociology because it reveals inequality where people don’t expect it—inside normal family life. The controversy is around interpretation: some readers think it blames working-class parents or treats middle-class parenting as the ideal. Lareau’s argument is more structural: institutions value certain cultural skills, and those skills are unevenly distributed because of time, money, and social confidence. Ethnographic research on families also raises privacy issues, because children are involved and the researcher sees intimate routines. It’s an excellent study for linking class, education, and cultural capital.
Suggested image: book cover; contrasting scenes of organised clubs vs free play.
9. Philippe Bourgois – In Search of Respect (1995)
Bourgois lived in East Harlem to study crack dealers and the wider community around them. His goal was to explain why people enter illegal economies and how they create dignity (“respect”) in conditions of racism, unemployment, and exclusion. Rather than presenting dealers as monsters, he shows them as workers navigating limited options, masculinity pressures, and violent markets.
This is marginal research because it occurs in spaces shaped by poverty, addiction, and danger. The controversies are ethical and representational. Ethically, being present around illegal activity raises questions about safety, confidentiality, and responsibility. Representationally, vivid depictions of violence can either expose injustice or risk being consumed as sensational “ghetto stories.” Bourgois tries to keep structural causes central, but readers can still misread the text. In class, it’s a powerful example of how sociology can humanise without romanticising—and how hard that balance is.
Suggested image: book cover; urban street-corner context.
10. William Foote Whyte – Street Corner Society (1943)
Whyte moved into an Italian-American neighbourhood in Boston to study “corner boys” and local social organisation. Instead of viewing a poor area as chaotic, he revealed leadership hierarchies, loyalties, and informal politics. His work challenged middle-class stereotypes of slum life by showing complexity and order.
This is marginal sociology because it centres working-class immigrant communities often treated as problems to be managed. The controversy comes later: questions about consent and whether participants truly understood the scale of publication. Ethnography builds trust, but that trust can turn into anger if people feel exposed or labelled. Whyte’s work is especially useful for teaching how ethnography produces deep insight—while raising the uncomfortable question: who benefits when researchers publish marginal communities’ private lives?
Suggested image: book cover; historical street-corner photo.
11. Elijah Anderson – Code of the Street (1999)
Anderson studied inner-city neighbourhood life to explain how respect becomes a survival issue when institutions fail. He describes a “street code” where appearing weak can invite victimisation, so young men may perform toughness, readiness to fight, and emotional control. Importantly, Anderson shows that many families teach “decent” values, but young people still learn the code because the street environment demands it.
This is marginal sociology because it shows how violence can be socially organised—not random. The controversy is misinterpretation: some people read the “code” as blaming communities, rather than seeing it as an adaptation to structural inequality, segregation, and distrust in policing. It’s also debated in terms of culture vs structure: does the concept risk overstating culture? Or does it explain how structural conditions produce cultural responses? For students, it’s a sharp example of sociological explanation that feels uncomfortable because it refuses easy moral stories.
Suggested image: book cover; barbershop/stoop street-life context.
12. Jock Young – The Drugtakers (1971)
Young studied marijuana users in Notting Hill and argued that society’s reaction can worsen deviance. His concept of “deviance amplification” explains how heavy policing and hostile media coverage push a group into greater cohesion, stronger identity, and sometimes more intense rule-breaking. What began as casual use becomes a symbol of resistance once the label “drug user” sticks.
This is marginal research because it looks at people being pushed outside respectable society by stigma. The controversy is political: the argument challenges “tough on drugs” approaches and suggests moral panic can create the very problem it claims to fight. Some readers see this as “soft” on crime; others see it as a realistic account of how labelling and exclusion operate. It’s brilliant for teaching the role of media, policing, and public fear in constructing “deviant” groups.
Suggested image: 1970s youth subculture imagery; book cover.
13. Stanley Cohen – Folk Devils and Moral Panics (1972)
Cohen analysed the Mods and Rockers “riots” and showed how media exaggeration can create a moral panic: the public comes to see a group as a threat, authorities respond aggressively, and the group sometimes performs the role they’ve been assigned. His key point is that the reaction can be out of proportion to the original event—and can escalate conflict.
This is marginal sociology because it focuses on how society creates scapegoats and pushes youth cultures into “folk devil” status. The controversy is that it criticises powerful institutions—media and policing—rather than simply blaming young people. It also challenges common sense: if you punish harder, you may make the identity stronger. Students often love this because it helps them decode modern panics (about migrants, social media, knife crime, “feral youth”) and ask: who benefits from the panic?
Suggested image: Mods/Rockers archive photo; book cover; sensational newspaper headline montage.
14. Erving Goffman – Asylums (1961)
Goffman studied psychiatric hospitals as “total institutions” where life is tightly controlled: routines, rules, surveillance, and loss of individuality. He argued that institutional processes can “mortify” the self—reducing people to labels and procedures rather than treating them as full individuals. The study reveals how power operates through mundane practices: admission procedures, ward rules, and staff authority.
This is marginal sociology because it exposes what happens to people hidden away from public view. The controversy involves both ethics and representation. Historically, some of Goffman’s observation methods raise consent concerns by modern standards, and professionals disliked the portrayal of institutions as degrading. Yet the work helped reshape debates about mental health care and institutional abuse. It’s a strong example of sociology challenging “normal” systems that harm vulnerable people while claiming to help them.
15. Loïc Wacquant – Body and Soul (2004)
Wacquant trained as a boxer in a Chicago gym to understand ghetto life through “carnal” ethnography—learning not just by watching but by doing. He shows boxing as discipline, identity, and respect in a place marked by exclusion. The gym becomes a refuge from street danger and a way to build pride, routine, and community.
This is marginal sociology because it takes seriously the embodied realities of working-class masculinity and survival. The controversy is methodological: can a researcher be that involved and still analyse critically? Some argue he “goes native” and romanticises the gym; others argue his immersion produces exceptional validity. It also raises questions about what sociology counts as evidence: numbers, interviews, or the trained body itself? Students often find this study exciting because it shows sociology can be physically immersive and emotionally intense, not just “questionnaires and graphs.”
Suggested image: book cover; boxing gym context image.
16. Dick Hobbs – Doing the Business (1988)
Hobbs studied organised crime and informal economies in London’s East End, showing how illegality can be woven into local working-class life and how boundaries between criminals and police can blur. He focused on networks: pubs, friendships, reputations, and “business” opportunities that exist when formal employment declines.
This is marginal sociology because it enters morally grey worlds where people survive through semi-legal hustles and community ties. The controversy comes from studying actors who may be violent, corrupt, or connected to serious crime. Researchers face risk, and they must protect identities while still producing credible detail. Hobbs is also controversial for challenging simple “good cop/bad criminal” stories, showing instead how local power and negotiation can shape policing. It’s a brilliant case for discussing gatekeepers, trust, and the dangers of researching powerful deviant networks.
17. Beverley Skeggs – Formations of Class and Gender (1997)
Skeggs followed working-class women in vocational education to show how “respectability” is a classed judgement. Many participants tried to present themselves as caring, moral, and proper, but social institutions often treated working-class femininity as lacking value. Skeggs argues that class is not just income; it’s a moral ranking system that shapes whose behaviour is seen as respectable.
This is marginal sociology because it focuses on lives often ignored or judged by middle-class standards. The controversy is uncomfortable: it suggests society repeatedly denies working-class women recognition, even when they play by the rules. It also challenges strands of feminism that focus on gender but underplay class. Students tend to find this study powerful because it connects inequality to everyday humiliation, aspiration, and identity work.
18. Máirtín Mac an Ghaill – The Making of Men (1994)
Mac an Ghaill studied masculinities in school, showing that boys don’t form one “male identity.” Instead, different masculine styles are shaped by class, race, and school processes: some gain status through toughness and anti-school attitudes, others through achievement or sports, and some are marginalised through homophobia and sexism. He links school culture to wider inequality: schooling can reproduce gendered and classed power, not just teach subjects.
This is marginal sociology because it captures how institutions shape identity and how some pupils become insiders while others become targets. The controversy comes from exposing sexism, racism, and homophobia as ordinary parts of school life, not rare incidents. It also raises ethical questions about researching minors and handling harmful behaviour. In classrooms, this study works brilliantly for discussions on hidden curriculum, peer cultures, and how schools police gender.
19. Bourgois & Schonberg – Righteous Dopefiend (2009)
This long-term study of homeless heroin users combines ethnography with documentary photography to show how addiction, poverty, and social exclusion shape daily life. It highlights survival strategies, friendships, violence, illness, and repeated encounters with policing and stigma. The study insists that homelessness and addiction aren’t just “bad choices,” but outcomes of structural inequality—housing policy, labour markets, criminalisation, and health disparities.
This is marginal sociology at its most extreme: people living outside mainstream institutions entirely. The controversy is about representation and ethics. Graphic photos and intimate scenes can raise worries about exploitation (“poverty porn”) even when consent is given. There are also practical dilemmas: when researchers witness overdose risk, violence, or harm, when do they intervene? This is a superb study for discussing whether “showing the truth” can itself be harmful—and how researchers try to minimise that harm while still exposing injustice.
Suggested image: book cover (often the safest option); ethically selected contextual photography.
20. Geoff Pearson – Football Hooliganism, Policing and “Risk Fans”
Geoff Pearson’s research on football hooliganism and crowd management focuses on how disorder at matches is not simply caused by “violent fans,” but is often shaped by policing strategies, risk profiling, and the build-up of tension around games. Working close to football crowds, Pearson has examined how some supporters become labelled as “risk” groups, how surveillance and containment tactics can escalate conflict, and how fans experience public space (streets, pubs, transport) on match days. This is sociology on the margins because it studies groups that are frequently treated as a public threat and targeted by social control, even when most fans are not violent.
The controversy sits in the challenge his work poses to common-sense narratives. Research that highlights the role of police decisions can be seen as “making excuses” for hooliganism, or as criticising law enforcement. It also raises practical and ethical issues: studying volatile crowds can be dangerous; researchers may witness criminal acts; and publishing findings can upset stakeholders (police, clubs, media) who prefer clear-cut blame. For students, Pearson’s work is a strong example of how sociologists question who gets labelled deviant, how moral panics form, and how power operates in public order policing.
References to original works
- Anderson, E. (1999). Code of the Street: Decency, Violence, and the Moral Life of the Inner City. New York: W. W. Norton.
- Becker, H. S. (1953). “Becoming a Marihuana User.” American Journal of Sociology, 59(3), 235–242.
- Becker, H. S. (1963). Outsiders: Studies in the Sociology of Deviance. New York: Free Press.
- Bourgois, P. (1995). In Search of Respect: Selling Crack in El Barrio. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
- Bourgois, P., & Schonberg, J. (2009). Righteous Dopefiend. Berkeley: University of California Press.
- Cohen, S. (1972). Folk Devils and Moral Panics. London: MacGibbon & Kee.
- Goffman, A. (2014). On the Run: Fugitive Life in an American City. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
- Goffman, E. (1961). Asylums: Essays on the Social Situation of Mental Patients and Other Inmates. New York: Anchor Books.
- Griffin, J. H. (1961). Black Like Me. Boston: Houghton Mifflin.
- Hobbs, D. (1988). Doing the Business: Entrepreneurship, the Working Class, and Detectives in the East End of London. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
- Humphreys, L. (1970). Tearoom Trade: Impersonal Sex in Public Places. Chicago: Aldine.
- Lareau, A. (2003). Unequal Childhoods: Class, Race, and Family Life. Berkeley: University of California Press. (Updated ed. 2011.)
- Mac an Ghaill, M. (1994). The Making of Men: Masculinities, Sexualities and Schooling. Buckingham: Open University Press.
- Patrick, J. (1973). A Glasgow Gang Observed. London: Eyre Methuen.
- Pearson, G. (2012). An Ethnography of English Football Fans: Cops, Robbers and the Police. Manchester: Manchester University Press.
- Pearson, G., & Stott, C. (2011). Football Hooliganism: Policing and the War on the “English Disease”. London: Pennant Books.
- Skeggs, B. (1997). Formations of Class and Gender: Becoming Respectable. London: Sage.
- Venkatesh, S. A. (2008). Gang Leader for a Day: A Rogue Sociologist Takes to the Streets. New York: Penguin Press.
- Wacquant, L. (2004). Body and Soul: Notebooks of an Apprentice Boxer. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
- Whyte, W. F. (1943). Street Corner Society: The Social Structure of an Italian Slum. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
- Willis, P. (1977). Learning to Labour: How Working Class Kids Get Working Class Jobs. Farnborough: Saxon House.
- Young, J. (1971). The Drugtakers: The Social Meaning of Drug Use. London: MacGibbon & Kee.
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