Sociology Core Courses

Year 1

Researching Society and Culture (2 x 15 credits)
These courses introduce you to the methods that sociologists have developed to analyse societies and to produce sociological knowledge. Through lectures and workshops you learn about methods in relation to sociological topics and research traditions. You develop your practical skills in using these methods and read reports of studies in Sociology. Each 15 credit course is assessed by: one research essay of 2,500 words.

Critical Readings: The Emergence of Sociological Rationality (30 credits)
This focuses on key texts in sociology, reading them closely and critically. You are introduced to Sociology’s key thinkers through focusing on extracts from their writing and learning how to read in a critical way. You look at what they say, but also how they say it. The course aims to give you confidence in reading and thinking about texts. Assessed by: one three-hour seen written examination.

Modern Knowledge, Modern Power (30 credits)
This aims to introduce you to the ‘sociological imagination’. What is distinctive about Sociology? With a focus on knowledge and power, the course looks at how Sociology has developed, with an emphasis on the study of relations between individuals and groups in modern industrial societies. Assessed by: one three-hour seen written examination.

Culture and Society (30 credits)
On the whole, Sociology deals with social life as meaningful relations between social actors. This course is about how to understand the production of meaning and how meaning operates in cultural processes. You consider things like language, culture, identity, communication, media and the circulation of meaning in social spaces such as cities. Assessed by: one three-hour seen written examination.

Year 2

Central Issues in Sociological Analysis (15 credits)
This looks at central questions in Sociology about how to study of society. It focuses in particular on issues of agency and structure; holism and individualism; continuity and change; public and private; structure and self; laws, observation and interpretation. Assessed by: one two-hour written examination.

The Making of the Modern World (15 credits)
This focuses on the formation of the modern state out of earlier forms of political organisation, and examines the development of nationalism, the nature of colonialism and imperialism and the rise of fascism. It also considers the development and problematisation of the welfare state, and the contemporary ‘crisis of the nation-state’. Assessed by: one two-hour written examination.

Social Change and Political Action (15 credits)
What is politics? For many people, the answer is simple: politics, as the management and organisation of the public good, is the province of government and parties. Its occurrences and machinations are played out, more or less openly, in parliaments, bureaucracies, elections, as well as in our newspapers and on our television and computer screens. Sociologists and social theorists have tended to adopt broader definitions of politics. While the first part of the course is primarily concerned with establishing a firm grasp of the fundamental approaches to the political sociology of democratic societies, the second introduces debates – over planning, ethnic cleansing, neoliberal ‘de-democratisation’ – that will allow us to think through the relevance of the classical categories of political sociology to the study of contemporary societies. Assessed by: one 3,500-word essay.

Philosophy and Methodology of the Social Sciences (15 credits)
All sociologists have had to deal with some conflict between the idea of sociological knowledge as scientific, guided by reason, and human subjectivity, which gives us differing conceptions of what is real or true. This course looks at some problems in finding out about the social world, dealing with values, and interpreting social reality or realities. Assessed by: one two-hour written examination.

Sociology of Culture and Communication (15 credits)
This begins by focusing on how culture has been conceived in the major traditions of sociological thought and moves on to consider the significance of the development of mass communications research and cultural studies for a sociology of culture. Assessed by: one two-hour written examination.

Researching Society and Culture 2 (2 x 15 credits)
These second level methods courses look in detail at the various stages in the research process: including the construction of research questions, collecting and analysing data and the political and ethical questions involved in thinking about writing for an audience. You're encouraged to work through these issues by reading particular
research monographs and by developing your own research proposal. Each 15 credit course assessed by: one 2,500-word essay.

Year 3

Theorising Contemporary Society (15 credits)
This examines how the world has changed since classical sociological theory was produced and the need for a framework for understanding the changes. Topics include (1) recent and contemporary capitalism; developments in the economy; (2) technology and the future; and (3) politics and social movements. Assessed by: one two-hour seen paper.

Issues in Contemporary Sociology (15 credits)
This debates the cultural implications of the issues raised in Theorising Contemporary Society, considering the movements and arguments that surround the term ‘postmodernity’ in terms of identity, the body, feminism and sexuality. Assessed by: one 4,500-word essay. Please note: this Core Course is an Option for all joint honours Sociology students.

Contemporary Social Theory and Society (30 credits)
Combining the two courses above, this course forms the compulsory taught core for third year BA single honours Sociology students. Assessed by: one three-hour seen paper.

Dissertation (30 credits)
This course enables you to develop an area of interest through personal study. You write a short 8,000-word Dissertation on a topic of your own choice. A personal tutor supervises the Dissertation. Please note: this Dissertation is an Option for BA Anthropology and Sociology students and compulsory for all other Sociology degrees.