Why are ‘private troubles’ also ‘public issues’? This course enables you to explore and answer questions just like this. The course will appeal if you are interested in how social life shapes individuals’ experiences of the world around us.
From across sociology and allied social sciences, you will gain a thorough understanding of theories and methodologies. Then you will have the opportunity to tailor your programme to your own specific interests through our wide range of options.
Your period of study will involve you examining individuals’ experiences, and encounters with structures and institutions; reading new empirical research; exploring social theories; and assessing innovative methodologies.
State of Art of Sociology
This module seeks to introduce you to some of the major debates about how theorising and empirical research should be done, through examples of how it is being done. It seeks to situate this against the background of the sociological tradition and to give students a sense of where there is continuity, discontinuity, progress and/or decline.
Understanding Social Science
This module introduces you to some of the standard methodological and theoretical problems posed by social inquiry. It is divided into two parts with the first part being structured around problems in social science and the second part around the problem(s) of objectivity. Many of the issues to be discussed relate to one key question: are the methods of the social sciences essentially the same or essentially different from those of the natural sciences?
Dissertation
The dissertation module gives you the opportunity to complete an independent piece of research on a topic of your own choice with the support of your dissertation supervisor, plenary teaching, and other online resources. The aim is for you to creatively use the substantive and methodological training acquired in the earlier part of your course to critically analyse a research topic of sociological relevance.
Optional modules
Optional modules can vary from year to year. Example optional modules may include:
- Qualitative Methods in Social Research
- Quantitative Methods in Social Research
- Gender, Imperialism and International Development
- Gender Analysis and Development Practice
- Cultures of Life, Authority and Power in Modernity
- Market Life: Wealth and Poverty in Global Capitalism
- Social Research for Social Change
- State of the Art of Sociology
- Understanding Social Science
- The Sociology of Urban Life
- Postcolonial Theory and Practice
- Transnational Media Ecologies
- Feminist Pedagogy/Feminist Activism
- Queering Sociology
- Key Problems in Criminal Justice
- Creative Research Methods
- Ethnography and the Anthropological Tradition
- Sociology of End Times
- Social Data Science
- Researching Inequality: Race, Class, Gender in Global Perspective
