The programme consists of four compulsory modules and a dissertation.
Compulsory modules
Module title |
Credits |
Thinking Sociologically
Thinking Sociologically
30 credits
Contemporary sociological thinking emerges from a rich and complex history of attempts to understand the patterns and dynamics of social life. This module will invite you to consider particular moments and relations within this history as an introduction to the sociological imagination today. We will consider key trajectories to show how current debates both continue and challenge lines of thought that have engaged sociologists. We will see how core theoretical questions of social reproduction, inequalities, subjectivity, truth, knowledge and belief systems and more have remained within the scope of sociology’s explorations while new developments have created the richness of themes and approaches that now live under the umbrella of the discipline.
Thinking Sociologically will enable you to study core themes of sociology in-depth at an advanced level and encourage you to develop your faculties for thinking critically and sociologically. You'll learn through close reading and discussion of key writings, and written assessment involving close textual analysis. The module will be team-taught, with lecturers taking two weeks each to discuss particular sociological themes as represented in a classical and a related contemporary text. The texts will be treated in-depth in seminar discussion and assessed by detailed comparison in written work.
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30 credits |
Methodology Now
Methodology Now
30 credits
Methodology Now will address ‘sociology-in-the-making’, examining epistemological claims, methodological processes and inventive qualitative research methods. The module aims to activate the sociological imagination so that you can critically evaluate current debates about sociological methodology. You'll study how sociological methodology is being transformed in the age of visual, digital and other technologies, as well as discuss the extent to which live or inventive forms of empirical research challenge other modes of social and cultural analysis.
Through a combination of lectures, seminars and workshops, you'll explore key moments in sociological research, beginning with the formulation of problems, the idea of relevance and ethics. The course will be team-taught, with a weekly lecture, seminar and workshop which will be focused on short exercises of qualitative methods in action. You'll be assessed through a portfolio of summative assessments which are built up over ten weeks, culminating in the final assessment which will comprise of a research proposal. The modular nature of the assessment is intended to give more opportunity for non-traditional styles of learning.
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30 credits |
Cities and Society
Cities and Society
30 credits
This is a core course for both the MA Urban Studies pathway and the Photography and Urban Cultures (PUC) programme. Both programmes form part of the Goldsmiths Sociology portfolio of MAs hosted by the Centre for Urban and Community Research [CUCR]. CUCR provides an intellectual context for urban scholarship at Goldsmiths and beyond. CUCR also provides a wider programme of activities such as regular urban walks.
This course addresses significant issues in the contemporary organisation of urban landscape, connections between cities as well as the interface between human, architectural and planning fabrics. Drawing on specific empirical examples this course examines key debates in urban sociology. There is a strong focus on visual apprehension of cities and ways of accessing and researching cities through photography. Urban environments are navigated and understood visually, they are turned into photographs, video and film. This course probes the possibilities of visual knowledge in unravelling urban landscape and its built and human fabric.
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30 credits |
Rethinking the City
Rethinking the City
30 credits
In every century over the last millennium, Cities have been a crucial node within the networks of commerce and cultural exchange that spanned the world. In the 21st century, Cities remain a site of intense activity, sat atop innumerable junctions of capital, migration, culture and commodities. As such Cities such as London present the ideal focal point for developing an understanding of the pressing questions facing cities today and into the future. However, while it is important to understand the long history of, for example, London’s place within global networks of exchange and power, it is also impossible to ignore the extent to which, in recent years, forces that shape the contemporary city are visibly shifting. That is, the roads that meet at the city’s junction are arriving from new destinations, carrying new opportunities and risks. Accordingly, this course seeks to understand how cities such as London are being re-made amidst the re-wiring of global circuitry.
Focusing on specific examples – drawn from the Centre for Urban and Community Research’s activity across London and beyond – you'll explore the impact of new technologies, markets, mutations in governing ideologies, novel patterns of mobility and new technologies of surveillance on the city and its inhabitants. Beyond understanding how these developments impact on the city, the module aims to develop an understanding of cities such as London through its relatedness to other urban locations, situating London’s connectedness to elsewhere as integral to the ways in which the city is being re-made. As much as this is a module about rethinking the city, it is also about rethinking cities around the world, each increasingly interconnected with the rest, but with its own particularities bequeathed by ecology, culture and history.
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30 credits |
Dissertation
Dissertation
60 credits
The dissertation is a substantial piece of written work. It is intended to assess the full range of your abilities and to apply the full range of learning outcomes that you develop through your degree. In particular, it enables assessment of the ability to design, develop and write an advanced research project using primary and/or secondary materials appropriate to the topic and according to the necessary conventions of scholarly work. It requires independent motivation and self-directed learning, under supervision, and enables you to demonstrate competence for critical analysis and sustained persuasive argument.
Students on the MA Sociology, and Urban and Cultural Analysis pathways will be expected to submit a written dissertation of 12-15,000 words. Students on the Visual Sociology pathway will complete a project which combines a practice element or product with a methodological and theoretical reflection (5-6,000 words) as part of the project. As a guideline, a project should show substantial engagement with media and materials, for example it might consist of ca. 20 mins of video, a series of 20-30 photographs or drawings or an installation combining any number of objects and texts.
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60 credits |
As a full-time student, you would normally complete two compulsory modules in each of the Autumn and Spring terms. As a part-time student, you will spread these modules over two years.
Teaching
One-hour lectures address the compulsory themes of each module, followed by one-hour seminars in small groups of under 20.
You'll be encouraged to attend dissertation classes that train you in the basic principles of dissertation preparation, research and writing. You will be assigned a dissertation supervisor who will be available when you are writing the dissertation (approximately one hour contact time per month).
The main aim of the program is to explore new approaches to thinking about and researching the city formation and urban life. This can be broken down into three inter-related aims:
- To promote an appreciation of the relevance of the social, sociological knowledge and ways of knowing in the understanding of cities, urban economy, culture and politics, and the management of social change, and to encourage a critical understanding of interrelated concepts, debates and themes.
- To enable students critically to engage sociological and geographical theories and methodologies relevant to the studies of cities and urbanities, controversies and social change, and conduct an intellectually informed sustained investigation.
- To expose students to a lively research environment and the relevant expertise of the Department of Sociology and related departments and centres to provide a catalyst for independent thought and study.
Expert walks and seminars
The course is accompanied by a series of expert 'London walks' spread across the year. These are led by a range of researchers from within the Centre for Urban and Community Research, as well as guests from various institutions across the city, and take students through the sites of that their work focuses on.
Alongside compulsory modules, the convenors will also run an Urban Film Series, a series of evening screenings of various documentaries and films relevant to the themes of the course.
The Centre for Urban Community research also holds regular seminars with a range of urban professionals, architects and academics from outside the university, giving the MA Sociology (Urban Studies) a space to join in with the Centre’s intellectual community.
Assessment
The assessment consists of coursework, extended essays, reports, presentations, practice-based projects or essays/logs, group projects, reflective essays, and seen and unseen written examinations.
MA granted on the completion of 180 CATS (all coursework and dissertation); Postgraduate Diploma in Higher Education granted on the completion of 120 CATS (all coursework without dissertation); Postgraduate Certificate in Higher Education granted on the completion of 60 CATS (the completion of two compulsory modules).
Download the programme specification.
Please note that due to staff research commitments not all of these modules may be available every year.
Between 2020 and 2022 we needed to make some changes to how programmes were delivered due to Covid-19 restrictions. For more information about past programme changes please visit our programme changes information page.