Sociology

Sociologists have for decades been providing answers to difficult government and policy questions, informing industry and challenging inequalities.

Sociology is concerned with understanding social life and our place within it. On this course, you will study human connections and relationships, and how these connections, as well as social structures, such as social class, race and gender, are linked to the way we behave. You will tackle difficult questions around issues such as poverty, sexism, austerity, immigration, privacy and social unrest, and gain insights into our cultural and everyday lives.

Our world today faces multiple crises, each of which impacts on society in ways that require astute analysis. From the cost of living crisis in the UK to the global environmental crisis and international conflict, people around the world are dealing with rapid changes to the communities they live in, with many becoming unaffordable or even uninhabitable. At the same time, new digital technologies mean people around the world are more informed and connected than ever before and cultural changes mean many more people are expressing identities that were at one time suppressed or even criminalised. As a Sociology student, you will explore these historical changes and contemporary events to understand what kind of impact they can have on society, how societies deal with them and how they can be the catalysts for major societal change.

Course Modules

Year one: Contemporary Challenges in Crime and Society, Criminal Justice and Human Rights, Culture, Power and Deviance, Social Divisions and Inequality, Social Justice in Action, and Thinking Sociologically.

Year two core modules: Research Problems and Methods: Making it Count, Research Problems and Methods: Qualitatively Better, and Understanding the Social World.

Year two optional modules (choose three): Critical Perspectives on Policing, Critical Victimology, Environmental Justice, Globalisation, Society and Crime, Human Rights, Genocide and Resistance, Internet Risk and Security, Policing and Social Control, Violence in Society. You can replace an option with a University Wide Language module at level 5.

Year three core module (choose one): Dissertation (optional), Work: Practice and Reflection.

Year three optional modules (choose four): Bodies: Biology to Blushing, Crime, Society and Racialisation, Critical Approaches to (Counter) Terrorism, Critical Perspectives on Policing, Critical Victimology, Digital Society, Environmental Justice, Gender, Crime and Criminal Justice, Human Rights, Genocide and Resistance, Identities and Interactions, Internet Risk and Security, Migration and Socio-Legal Dynamics, Prisons and Punishment: Responses to Crime, Probation and Rehabilitation, Violence in Society, The Criminal Justice Process, and Precarity and Insecure Lives.
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A variety of assessment methods are used, including essays, exams, group and individual presentations, reports, and an optional dissertation.