Sociology and Social Policy with a Foundation year

Our Sociology and Social Policy degree explores how societies work and how their futures can be shaped. From the local to the global, the personal to the structural, it examines key current challenges, critical debates, and real-life solutions.

You will explore the key factors that shape our everyday experience of social life, as well as how society identifies needs, promotes wellbeing and allocates resources. You will examine major issues such as social justice, inequality, health, education and social movements, always connecting them to today’s trends and tomorrow’s possibilities.

Our flexible degree structure with a wide range of specialist modules gives you the scope to tailor your course to your particular interests, career ambitions, or plans for further study.

To enrich your learning, we offer a wide range of activities such as field trips to places of social and political interest, including the Senedd, Big Pit, the Swansea Copperjack Boat, South Wales Police HQ and Swansea Prison. We also regularly welcome guest speakers to share their specialist knowledge in workshops and seminars, giving you the chance to hear directly from professionals across the sector.

You will have the opportunity to undertake either a Year Abroad or a Year in Industry, allowing you to choose the pathway that best suits your interests and future ambitions. The Year in Industry can be spent in the UK or overseas, enabling you to gain valuable workplace experience. The University advocates for paid-only placements, which on average have a salary of over £20,000. Unpaid placements are considered on a case-by-case basis.

The optional Foundation Year for this programme can give you an exciting introduction to higher education, setting you up with the skills, confidence, and knowledge that you will need to be successful in your undergraduate degree. It’s ideal if you need a little more support after further education, or are returning to education after a gap. Following successful completion of the Foundation Year, you will progress onto Year 1 of your BSc.

In your Foundation Year, you will typically study areas including: Critical Thinking; Interactive Learning Skills and Communication; Living in the Social World; Understanding Society; Research Project; and Welfare Across the Globe.

In Year 1, you will typically study areas including: Introducing Social Policy: Key Concepts and History; Foundations in Social Sciences Research and Academic Skills; Sociology: The Classics; Principles and Challenges for Social Policy; Understanding Inequality: Capitalism, Money and Power; and Sociology: Contemporary Controversies.

In Year 2, you will typically study areas including: Social Problems; Using Evidence for Research, Policy and Practice; Health Policy; Investigating Gender; Devolution, Policy Making and Social Change; Poverty and Social Justice; Education, Policy and Society.

In Year 3, you will typically study areas including: Dissertation; Principles of Social Policy; The Family and Children: Ethics and Policy; Black Mirror Sociology: Technology and Society; Risk in Modern Society; Understanding the sex industry: Theory, policy and practice; Social Movements, Social Policy and Social Change; Illegal Economies; Probation and Community Justice: Policy, Practice and Partnerships; and Race and Natio.

We are proud to provide an outstanding educational experience, using the most effective learning and teaching approaches, carefully tailored to suit the specific needs of your course. Apart from a small number of online-only courses, most of our courses consist of in-person, on-campus teaching, enabling full engagement with your lecturers and fellow students.

Practical skills sessions, lab work seminars, and workshops predominantly take place in person, allowing for group working and demonstrations. We also operate virtual labs and Simulated Learning Environments which will facilitate greater access to training opportunities in the future. However, our approach also includes the use of some online learning to support and enhance traditional face-to-face teaching.

Online learning may take place ‘live’ using software such as Zoom, allowing you to interact with the lecturer and other students and to ask questions. Lecture recordings also allow for more flexibility to revisit material, to revise for assessments and to enhance learning outside of the classroom. Some modules have extra resources in Canvas, such as videos, slides and quizzes enabling further flexible study.

This course may offer some modules taught through the medium of Welsh or bilingually for students who consider themselves to be fluent Welsh speakers. For more details on the provision available see the Welsh Provision expander below.