BSc Anthropology

at Durham University

Year 1

In your first year, you will receive a thorough grounding in the theory and practice of anthropology in the broadest sense, addressing the core disciplines of social and biological anthropology as well as interdisciplinary perspectives on culture, society and health. Currently, students take five modules in anthropology and select one elective module offered by another department, including the option to study a module in a modern foreign language.

Compulsory modules:
 

• Peoples and Cultures

• Human Evolution and Diversity

• Being Human: An Introduction to the History and Practice of Anthropology

• Doing Anthropological Research

• Health, Illness and Society.

Year 2

In your second year, you will develop a deeper and more complex grasp of biological and evolutionary anthropology and continue to gain "hands-on" experience of conducting research through a series of regional field trips and activities that form our Anthropological Research Methods in Action module. You will also begin preparation for your dissertation through modules that are designed to support you to follow either a more social or biological pathway as you design your own research project, in addition to a core module that will help you develop plans for your dissertation and prepare to do your own research. You will also take two elective modules that will enable you to pursue your interests in specific topics from the wider anthropological discipline.

Compulsory modules:
 

• Anthropological Research Methods in Action

• Research Project Design

• Evolution, Variation and Adaptation

• Our Place in Nature

And one of the following modules:
 

• Biology, Culture & Society

• Reading Ethnography

Examples of optional modules:
 

• Kinship and Religion

• Politics and Economics

• Global Health and Disease

• Sex, Reproduction and Love.

Year 3 (Year 4 if undertaking a Year Abroad)

In your final year, you will design and carry out your own dissertation project and take part in our Anthropology Field Course Module. The Field Course usually takes place in the September prior to your final year and offers an intensive two-week fieldwork experience at one of the department’s residential field schools. You have a choice of up to six advanced optional taught modules, and you can take an elective option from another department if you wish.

Optional modules are generally based on the research expertise of staff, and reflect the University’s ideal of research-led education. Options available in the Department cover the full disciplinary spectrum, from the entirely biological to the entirely socio-cultural, or a mixture of anthropological sub-disciplines. Options change slightly from year-to-year, with a minimum of 18 different options to choose from every year.

Throughout your degree you are also invited to attend the regular round of departmental research seminars given by visiting scholars or Durham-based researchers and can participate in a key forum for current innovative research.

Core modules:
 

• Field School Module

• Dissertation

Examples of optional modules:
 

• Evolution of Cooperation

• Comparative Cognition and Culture

• Cultural Evolution of Music

• Technological Primates

• Decolonising Anthropology

• Primates in Peril

• Primates, Predators and the Ecology of Fear

• Homo Narrans: Evolutionary Anthropology of Fiction

• Forensic Anthropology

• Palaeoanthropology and Palaeoecology

• Anthropology in the Contemporary Middle East

• Anthropology, Art, and Experience

• Poison, Pollution and the Chemical Anthropocene

• Exhibiting Anthropology

• Capitalism in Ruins

• Social Anthropology of Hormones

• Anthropology of Ethics and Morality

• Anthropology of Sport

• Anthropological Skills for Climate Change Survival

• Power and Governance

• Violence and Memory

• Anthropology of Tobacco

• Anthropology of Health Inequality

• Anthropology of Physical Activity and Health

• Evolutionary Medicine: Maternal and Infant Health

• Human Reproductive Ecology

• Development, Conflict and Crisis in the Lower Omo

A level offer – AAB.

BTEC Level 3 National Extended Diploma/OCR Cambridge Technical Extended Diploma – DDD.

IB Diploma score – 36 with 665 in higher level subjects.

In addition to satisfying the University’s general entry requirements, please note:
 

• We welcome applications from those with other qualifications equivalent to our standard entry requirements and from mature students with non-standard qualifications or who may have had a break in their study.

• If you do not satisfy our general entry requirements, the Foundation Programme offers multidisciplinary degrees to prepare you for a range of specified degree courses.

• If you are an international student who does not meet the requirements for direct entry to this degree, you may be eligible to take an International Foundation Year pathway programme at the Durham University International Study Centre.

• We are pleased to consider applications for deferred entry.

Science A levels

Applicants taking Science A levels that include a practical component will be required to take and pass this as a condition of entry. This applies only to applicants sitting A levels with an English examination board.

The tuition fees shown for students are for one complete academic year of full time study and are set according to the academic year of entry. Fees for subsequent years of your course may rise in line with an inflationary uplift as determined by the government.

Anthropology

Of those students who graduated in 2019:
 

• 85% are in paid employment or further study 15 months after graduation across all our programmes

Of those in employment:
 

• 70% are in high skilled employment

• With an average salary of £24,000.