BSc (Hons) Sociology with Foundation

SSC301
Discovering Your Inner Academic 30 credits

In this module, students will learn the core academic and organisational skills required to succeed at university. They will benefit from a range of skill development sessions and subject-specific seminars, allowing them to practice applying the delivered academic skills in the context of their field of study.

SSC302
Individual Project 30 credits

Students will undertake, with supervision, an individual project related to their degree programme. Staff will guide students through the process of defining, planning, and setting up their project. As part of the module, students will gain research and time management skills that will support their successful progression through their degree programme.

SSC303
Crime and Deviance 30 credits

This module will introduce students to the main institutions and processes of the legal system and criminal justice in England and Wales, while developing key transferable skills related to the study and practice of law and criminal justice.

SSC304
Human Rights and Social Justice 30 credits

Through the lens of human rights and social justice is module will introduce students to a foundational sociological understanding of the structure and organisation of society; and to the main institutions of domestic and international government, and the theories and concepts used by political science to study them.

SOC4002
Social Identities and Inequalities 20 credits

This module explores how and why social inequalities influence lived experience and social identities. It focuses on a range of substantive issues, such as poverty, social class and hierarchies, health, gender and sexuality, family and kinship, neo-colonialism and 'race', and violence and ethnicity. This module explores how these influence culture, social identities and lived experience throughout the life-course.

SOC4003IE
Body Relatedness and Identity 20 credits

This module draws on a range of sociological and anthropological sources to examine how societies across the world perceive, transform, control and use the human body. The module's themes are designed to help students appreciate the body as central to the way humans experience the world. Seminars explore the disciplining and surveillance of bodies, the development of "habitus", bodily adornment and transformation, gender and sexuality, biopolitics, the commercialisation of the human body, and the body as a window on wider symbolic-cultural orders. In discussing these topics, first-year students will learn important social science skills, namely the ability to compare different socio-cultural contexts and engage in productive, multidisciplinary discussions.

SOC4004
Introduction to Social Theory 20 credits

This module introduces students to key features of classical social theory. These features are placed within the context of the Enlightenment, Modernity, the emergence of modern science and social science, and their use for contemporary social analyses.

SOC4005
Social Science Research Methodologies 20 credits

This module introduces students to the theory and practice of social research. Students also gain introductory knowledge of the social research process, particularly in relation to formulating a research question and conducting literature reviews. With an emphasis on matching research questions to appropriate methods, students also learn about core qualitative and quantitative social research methodologies.

SOC4006
Key Concepts and Skills for Sociology 20 credits

This core Sociology module provides a foundation for the development of transferable conceptual, methodological and study skills. Students engage with contrasting sources of knowledge about the social world, undertake a mini-fieldtrip, and learn about organisations working with local communities. Qualitative and quantitative data is applied to ‘real world’ social issues that are understood through the theoretical lens of the sociological imagination and lived experience.

ANT4007
Becoming Human

This module introduces students to interdisciplinary approaches concerned with ‘how we became human’. The module examines the unique characteristics of Homo Sapiens, focusing on evolutionary changes, tool use, mythology, social organisation, equality and inequality, intersubjectivity and symbolic culture (art, ritual, language and myth). Students will be introduced to key theories on human evolution, the evolution of language and its relationship with symbolic thought, while investigating social structures, behaviour, and gender dynamics. Practically, the students will be taught key study skills in bibliographic research, interdisciplinary methods, academic research, writing and presentations.

SOC5001
Culture, Structure and Experience 20 credits

This module explores the relationship between culture, social structure, social identities and lived experience. Drawing from and range of theoretical approaches it enables students to explore the relevance of the sociological imagination to understanding a range of contemporary socio-cultural topics and how these exemplify social change, identity, belonging and social exclusion.

SOC5006
Gender, Sex and Sexuality

This module introduces students to the sociology of gender, sex and sexuality. It interrogates these concepts with particular reference to identity, activism, social justice and social change. It develops an understanding of the similarities, differences and intersections between gender, sex, sexuality and other social signifiers of difference/diversity including ‘race’, ethnicity, dis/ability, class and age.

SOC5007
Race, Nation, Empire: Understanding Identity and Belonging

This module explores how intersecting ideologies of racism, nationalism, and imperialism relate to contemporary struggles over identity and belonging. In doing so, the module seeks to provide students with a critical understanding of the ideological bases of some of the most urgent issues facing contemporary societies, including: the fracturing of nation states after loss of empire; the racist backlash against postcolonial migration; and the rise of neo-nationalism.

SOC5008
The Social Science Research Process

This module builds on the Level 4 module ‘Social Science Research Methodologies’. In this module, students develop their knowledge and practical skills in qualitative and quantitative social research methodologies. The students also learn how to use computer software packages to help with the collection and analysis of data. In addition, students gain knowledge of how to create a research proposal.

SOC5009
Contemporary Theories of Society and Culture

The module introduces contemporary theoretical disputes framed within the context of classical and early modern theories of society and culture. These debates are linked to historical events and social and cultural research that reciprocally influenced contemporary theoretical change. Foundational disciplinary questions are broached, and formative critical workshops assist in developing theoretical argument, analysis and evaluation.

SSC500
Stage 2 Professional Development, Placement Preparation and Identifying Opportunities 0 credits

This module is for students in the School of Society and Culture who are interested in undertaking an optional placement in the third year of their programme. It supports students in their search, application, and preparation for the placement, including developing interview techniques and effective application materials (e.g. CVs , portfolios, and cover letters).

SSC601
School of Society and Culture Placement Year

Students have the opportunity to gain work experience that will set them apart in the job market when they graduate by undertaking an optional flexible placement year. The placement must be a minimum of 24-weeks (which can be split between a maximum of two different placement providers) and up to a maximum of 48-weeks over the course of the academic year. The placement is flexible and can be undertaken virtually, part or full time and either paid or voluntary. Students will have the option to undertake their placement year abroad. This year allows them to apply and hone the knowledge and skills acquired from the previous years of their programme in the real world.

SOC6003
The Politics of Wasted Lives 20 credits

The module explores contemporary theories of the emergence of surplus populations and how aspects of Modernity actively ‘wastes’ or makes superfluous the lives of outcast communities (eg. refugees, slum communities, segregated, concentrated and incarcerated peoples). Students critically reflect upon the political and ethical dimensions of social science for its part in Modernity’s processes and the wider impact social researchers have upon individuals and populations.

ANT6002
Different Ways of Knowing: The Anthropology of truth, post-truth and conspiracy 20 credits

This module explores the nature of knowledge and truth from a cross-cultural perspective. How do ideas of truth differ culturally, and change over time? How do people produce, guard, and destroy knowledge? After an introduction to phenomenology and ontology, students will be able to engage with different systems of truth and knowledge - from oral history, to scientific debate, to prophecy and conspiracy.

CRM6001
Futures Criminology 20 credits

The landscape of harm, crime and deviance is changing at a rapid pace. This module engages with a process of horizon scanning – attempting to identify new challenges and think about how criminology can usefully help us to understand and engage with emerging harms. This necessitates a critical reappraisal of the discipline itself as we engage with new methodologies, theories and paradigms.

CRM6003
Social Change and Justice 20 credits

This module examines how attitudes towards crime and justice have changed and developed over time. It will demonstrate the importance of historically and socially contextualising specific crimes in order to increase the understanding of their contemporary relevance, alongside examining the political and economic context.

CRM6008
Leisure, Consumerism and Harm 20 credits

This module explores contemporary developments within the study of leisure and consumerism, offering a theoretically informed understanding of key issues at the forefront of the discipline. Students will have the opportunity to study the changing nature of criminology’s engagement with leisure against a backdrop of global consumer capitalism.

SOC6001
Media, State and Society 20 credits

The media occupy key arenas whereby various social groups compete with one another to set public, political, commercial and cultural agendas. This module examines the relationship between media, state and society. It covers a number of substantive topic areas such as environmental issues, terrorism, war reporting, gender, crime and violence.

SOC6002
Food, Culture and Society 20 credits

This module aims to provide a critical understanding of sociological issues relating to food and foodways, (the beliefs and behaviours surrounding the production, distribution and consumption of food both on an individual and collective level). The module encourages critical reflection and practical experience of research in the area of food and foodways, with a focus on lived experience.

CRM6015
Global Conflict, Genocide and Crimes of the State

This module explores the issue of global (in)security in the context of state and non-state conflict. Theoretical and conceptual understandings of crime, violence, victimisation and justice will be used to interrogate acts such as war crimes and terrorism. The module will address the history of such crimes and will critically explore State and international responses.

CRM6016MX
Green Criminology: Climate Justice and the Planetary Crisis

This module will address theoretical perspectives, methodological issues, and empirical research related to the field of green criminology, including applied concerns, such as policy and social/political praxis, through a range of concepts, topics, and themes that are central to green criminology.

LAW6018MX
Law, Literature and the Screen

To introduce students to fictional and factional representations of the legal order in prose, film and TV, and to examine the inter-connections between law, literature and the screen.

PIR6009MX
Mao to Now: the Politics of Modern China

This module introduces students to politics in China. It provides them with the analytical skills and historical understanding to examine the structure of the contemporary Chinese state, looking in particular at Maoist legacies, nationalism and ideology, the relationships between party, law, state and market, and China’s involvement in international affairs.

ANT6009
Medical Anthropology

By systematically comparing ethnographic data from across the globe, this module shows how shared ideas of wellness and illness/affliction develop, and how individuals work to maintain their wellbeing by transforming, training, inscribing, feeding and thinking about their bodies. Medical Anthropology studies how illness, disease and death are locally explained, experienced, and acted upon, and examines how western and non-western medical traditions interact with bio-medical institutions.