He obtained his PhD in sociology in 1981, and the same year accepted a position at the University of Victoria, where he still teaches.
Bill Carroll is considered a leading Canadian critical sociologist.
Carroll produced major empirical work investigating the power and social organization of capitalist classes in Canada and transnationally.
In parallel, he wrote extensively on Canadian and transnational social movements, with a focus on key institutions of knowledge production such as the media and alternative policy-planning groups.
Over the years, his research has increasingly integrated environmental concerns, and his most recent project maps out the political power of the carbon extractive industry in Western Canada.