BA(Hons) in Sociology
UWE Bristol
Key Information
Campus location
Bristol, United Kingdom
Languages
English
Study format
On-Campus
Duration
3 - 4 years
Pace
Full time, Part time
Tuition fees
GBP 15,250 / per year *
Application deadline
Request info
Earliest start date
Request info
* home students per year: £9250 | international students per year: £15250
Introduction
Get to the heart of the issues facing society today by taking placements or internships, working with leading experts and developing your own insights into how to make a difference.
Why study sociology?
In a rapidly changing social landscape, studying society and people's relationship with it is increasingly important.
By exploring the nature, causes and effects of people's beliefs and behaviour, we can better understand social order and social change.
Sociologists are particularly good at evaluating, reasoning and communicating. They assess and map the context of social issues and problems skills that employers will value whatever career you choose.
Why UWE Bristol?
BA(Hons) Sociology focuses on how we can make a difference to 'self and society' using sociological theories and approaches.
Through a broad range of modules, and with the support of our staff who are leaders in their field, you'll engage with real issues, and develop fresh insights and solutions to help improve people's lives.
Learn to evaluate evidence, approach problems from multiple perspectives, and build your expertise in research, analysis and communication.
Carry out your own research projects to develop, test and apply new solutions to contemporary problems. Student projects have focused on the refugee/economic migrant crisis, representations of gender or religion in the media, homelessness, the gender pay gap, the policing of public order and demonstrations, the impact of new technology on cultural industries, and how social class affects attitudes to education. These illustrate just a small number of the types of projects students undertake.
Gain industry insights from guest speakers, and take part in work-based learning through our links with organisations such as the Bristol Youth Offending Team, Bristol Youth Education Service and the police.
Activities such as volunteering, placements and internships will build valuable vocational experience, and deepen your skills and knowledge further, to make you highly sought after when you graduate.
Where can it take me?
The broad skills and industry-focused experience you'll gain will make you attractive to a wide range of employers.
You could pursue a career in research, education, social work, charity work, counselling, politics, journalism or writing, or work in the justice, legal or media sectors.
You could also go on to do a postgraduate course or research degree.
Graduating in Sociology from UWE Bristol will open up a variety of interesting and rewarding future possibilities for you.
Career Opportunities
Our graduates are increasingly in demand by employers for their research and IT skills, their literacy and numeracy, and their understanding of individuals, social institutions and processes.
Many students choose to go into the public sector in local or central government or the civil service. Others take their skills into healthcare, the justice service, education, journalism, politics, public relations or human resources.
Many students also progress to postgraduate study and research degrees.
Get inspired
Our award-winning careers service will develop your employment potential through career coaching and find you graduate jobs, placements and global opportunities.
We can also help find local volunteering and community opportunities, provide support for entrepreneurial activity and get you access to employer events.
Curriculum
Content
The optional modules listed are those that are most likely to be available, but they may be subject to change.
Year one
You will study:
- Foundations in Social Theory: Provides a solid foundation in sociological knowledge by covering theories from the 'Founding Fathers' (Marx, Weber, Durkheim) through to contemporary feminism and applying their ideas to our everyday lives.
- Social Issues and Social Problems*: Covers diverse 'problems' (poverty, riots, drug misuse) to examine how Sociology makes a difference in the 'real world' by addressing pressing and complex social issues to identify policy solutions.
- Comparing Cultures: Challenges assumptions about our contemporary Western, capitalist lifestyles by comparisons with other 'non-modern' ways of life to raise profound questions around the supposed superiority of our society and its future sustainability.
- Sociological Practice - Becoming a Social Scientist*: Cultivates the sociological imagination to examine how 'the private troubles of individuals reflect and constitute the public issues of our times' (C. Wright Mills) while providing the basics of social research skills.
- Critical Thinking (Sociology and Criminology): Develops critical thinking capacities vital to higher education through symposia designed to enable an appreciation of the ambiguity and uncertainty of knowledge and the importance of advancing structured and coherent arguments to academic success.
- Study exchange (if possible and applicable)
*Accredited by the Institute of Leadership and Management (ILM).
If you choose the study exchange option, you'll spend the first and/or second semester of year two studying at another university.
Year two
You will study:
- Theorising Social Life: Deepens knowledge of sociological theories through applying key theorists (e.g. Bourdieu, Foucault and Ahmed) to a range of stimulating themes and topics (social class, gender & sexuality, 'race', culture, environment and work).
- Nature and Use of Research (Sociology): Develop the research knowledge and skills already developed at level one and starts applying them to your own independent research project undertaken at level three by way of producing a research proposal.
- Developing Self and Society (Sociology): Designed to help make a difference to yourself and society by linking sociological knowledge to work and community-based engagement thereby helping to identify personal qualities, professional skills and career aspirations.
Plus, one optional module from:
- Gender and Society: Examines gendered power relations amongst women and between women and men and explores gender identities and inequalities by focusing on a range of practices and phenomena (dieting, dating, drag queens etc.).
or
- Difference: Race, Ethnicity and Diversity in Contemporary Society: Uses our multi-cultural city of Bristol as a starting point for exploring diversity in a national and global context through a highly varied set of themes and topics (slavery, immigration, Islamophobia etc.).
and one optional module from:
- Transgression: Uses case studies from diverse fields (religion, sport, sex etc.) to examine how breaking taboos can be intensely exciting and pleasurable as well as if and how transgression is punished socially and legally.
or
- Love, Intimacy and Personal Life: The Sociology of Families: Investigates continuity and change in intimate personal relationships and family life through a focus on a range of phenomena (online dating, weddings, refugee parenting, pets as kin etc.).
Placement year (if applicable)
If you study on the four-year (sandwich) course, you'll spend a year away from the University on a work or study placement after year two.
Depending on which you choose, you'll either complete a placement learning or a learning and development module.
Final year
You will study:
- Sociology Project and Placement Module: Produce an independent research project conducted under the supervision of an expert in the sociological field in which the project is located. A short placement may, if chosen, form the basis for this research.
Plus three optional modules from:
- Stop, Look, Listen: A Sociology of Culture: Uses cutting-edge theory to problematise what culture is across a range of cultural fields, but with a particular emphasis on popular music as reflects the academic expertise of the module leader.
- Protest, Policing and Public Order: Uses key concepts to produce a case study analysis of the mobilisation and policing of protest groups and social movements ranging from gay liberation and animal rights through to Extinction Rebellion and #Blacklivesmatter.
- Childhood Disorder and Disordered Childhood: Explores elements of contemporary childhood (e.g. poverty, medicalisation, fatherlessness etc.) through the lens of order/disorder within the framework of late modernity that may be producing the over-regulation of children.
- Psychoanalysis Society and the Irrational: Applies psychoanalytic ideas such as repression, the unconscious and phantasy to varied phenomena (celebrity culture, adolescent self-harm, narcissistic individuals) to understand especially the irrational elements of social life.
- Digital Media and Society: Investigates the main social effects on our everyday lives of the proliferation of new communication technologies and computational devices within the context of an informational capitalist society dominated by networked power.
- Contemporary Critiques of Modern Society: Utilises advanced sociological theory to explain the crisis of modernity and discuss its possible resolution in relation to the big global issues (genocide, environmental catastrophe, economic collapse, war etc.).
- Seeing and Society - Applied Visual Sociology: Enables a different form of academic expression and assessment: a short documentary film on any topic of personal or public interest thereby deepening sociological understanding while also developing digital and media skills.
- Sustainable Futures: Analyses real-world case studies (car-free cities, craft production, upcycling etc.) to consider how the creative efforts of urban citizens, in Bristol and beyond, are constructing alternative and sustainable lives in the contemporary City.
The University continually enhances our offer by responding to feedback from our students and other stakeholders, ensuring the curriculum is kept up to date and our graduates are equipped with the knowledge and skills they need for the real world. This may result in changes to the course. If changes to your course are approved, we will inform you.
This structure is for full-time students only. Part-time students study the same modules but the delivery pattern will be different.