BA (Hons) Sociology

Course details On this course you will usually be taught by a range of staff with relevant expertise and knowledge appropriate to the content of the unit. This will include senior academic staff, qualified professional practitioners, demonstrators, technicians and research students. Year 1 Core units Families & Kinship in Contemporary Society: The overall aim of this unit is to introduce you to the complexity of family constellations and their meanings in contemporary societies. You will be introduced to the sociology of families, competing definitions, social policies relating to families, and comparative international family practices as they constitute and are constituted by their members. Social Exclusion & Discrimination: This unit explores the nature, lived experience, impact and possible causes of social exclusion and discrimination, using sociological and anthropological approaches. You will apply relevant sociological and anthropological enquiry to explore social exclusion, inequality, discrimination and oppression. Introduction to Social Research: This unit offers a broad introduction to sociological and anthropological methods and approaches to research. You will be introduced to a range of classic and contemporary examples of social research and will develop your knowledge of research methods and methodologies in dedicated skills workshops. Finally, you will be encouraged to carry out your own supervised group project into social phenomena. Introduction to Social Theory: This unit introduces you to key social theory that has informed classical and contemporary sociology and anthropology. Such theories will be embedded in the historical and philosophical context of the analysis of Western society and its social forms. Understanding Rural & Urban Communities: This unit aims to provide you with a broad overview of the development of urban and rural communities. You will be encouraged to consider the ways in which ‘rural’ and ‘urban’ are represented in contemporary society, and how this impacts upon both individual and community identity and participation. Introduction to Criminology & the Criminal Justice System: This unit offers an introductory exploration of crime, the discipline and study of criminology, drawing on international perspectives, and the history and development of the criminal justice system and penology, especially in the UK. There will also be scope for international comparison of approaches to crime and punishment in developed and less developed societies. Year 2 Core units Methods & Methodologies in the Social Sciences: You’ll broaden your understanding and familiarity with core social research design, modes of analysis and methodologies, including qualitative, quantitative and emancipatory methods. Globalisation & Marginalisation: You’ll explore how a series of global processes, institutions, and flows (of people, capital and commodities, for example) generate complex forms of inequality and marginalisation in the contemporary world, as well as some of the ways in which these developments are challenged and opposed. Into the Field: This unit aims to provide students with experience of carrying out ethnographic research. Working in teams, you will collaboratively design and undertake research projects in the Bournemouth area, using ethnographic methods and techniques to investigate sociologically and anthropologically framed research questions. Histories of Social Policy & Social Welfare: This unit will provide you with a broad overview of the historical development of social policy and social welfare systems in British, European, and international contexts. You will critically examine how welfare policies are bound up with the development of the modern state, and how they are linked to changing perspectives and ideologies of inequalities associated with class, gender and race. Option units (choose two) Growing Up & Growing Old: This unit explores sociological and anthropological perspectives and theories of childhood, youth and aging. Love & Intimacy in Contemporary Society: The overall aim of this unit is to reflect on relationships in society and the role of love and intimacy in framing lives. The unit looks at how love and intimacy is experienced differently and intersected by gender, ethnicity and sexuality. In Sickness, Disability & Health: You will become more critically aware of the historical, structural, and cultural influences on views of health, and how this contributes towards the creation of the construct known as disability. Ethnographies of Crime & Policing: You will explore critically how crime and ‘policing’ may be understood and approached within social worlds. Controversial Cultures: This unit explores the classic and contemporary debates about how culture and controversial culture should be understood, theorised and studied. 20-day placement: You will have the opportunity to study an area of academic and professional interest in sociology and its relationship to wider society through participation in "placement" based learning. Please note that option units require minimum numbers in order to run and may only be available on a semester by semester basis. They may also change from year to year. Year 3 Placement: You'll complete an optional minimum 30-week placement which can be carried out anywhere in the world. The placement year offers you a chance to gain experience and make contacts for the future. Year 4 Core units Dissertation: The final-year project provides you with an opportunity to demonstrate your intellectual, analytic and creative abilities through independent inquiry of a chosen topic within the broad parameters of sociology. Terrorism, Protection & Society: The aim of this unit is to introduce you to many of the complex issues involved in conceptualising and responding to terrorism and protection in contemporary societies. You will be introduced to protection and counter-terrorism as a form of social regulation and control of individuals and ‘deviant’ groups (micro and meso issues) and prescribing ways in which society is ordered in an age of terrorist threat (macro-political issues). You will develop a deep critical understanding of the ways in which meanings are constructed and how these impact on social life. Seekers, Believers & Iconoclasts: This core unit explores belief systems as a sociological phenomenon contextualised within a cultural and social analysis, as well as a philosophical and historical one. Option units (choose two) Anthropology of International Policy & Intervention: Following conflict, war or regime change, many populations and states have become subject to large-scale military or humanitarian intervention, policy and knowledge transfer and translation projects, globally, from West to East or North to South. This unit aims to familiarize you with critical anthropological debates on international intervention policies and practices. 'Troubling' Gender: To understand sociological and anthropological approaches to gender as an aspect of society and social organization, the unit will explore gender as socially constructed and historically variable aspect of societies, past and present. 20-day placement: This aims to enable you to develop you employability and career management capabilities as well as offering the opportunity to study an area of academic and professional interest in sociology, and its relationship to wider society through participation in placement based learning. Please note that option units require minimum numbers in order to run and may only be available on a semester by semester basis. They may also change from year to year. Scheduled learning and teaching activities Contact hours Throughout the course you will have lecture and seminars which you will build on through independent study and group projects, developing a range of research, analytical and communication skills sought by employers. An optional placement year is available to all students. Year 1 – 16% of your time will be spent in timetabled learning & teaching activities Learning and teaching: 242hours Independent learning: 958 hours Non-assessed learning and teaching: 28 hours Year 2 – 18% of your time will be spent in timetabled learning & teaching activities Learning and teaching: 309 hours Independent learning: 891 hours Non-assessed learning and teaching: 19 hours Year 3/4 - 18% of your time will be spent in timetabled learning & teaching activities Learning and teaching: 116 hours Independent learning: 934 hours Non-assessed learning and teaching: 26 hours Placement hours:150 89% of the course is assessed by coursework Year 1: 67% Year 2: 100% Year 3/4: 100% The majority of your assessments will be via coursework culminating in your dissertation project in the final year; but you will also undertake group work and some written exams. Programme specification Programme specifications provide definitive records of the University's taught degrees in line with Quality Assurance Agency requirements. Every taught course leading to a BU Award has a programme specification which describes its aims, structure, content and learning outcomes, plus the teaching, learning and assessment methods used. Download the programme specification for BA (Hons) Sociology. Whilst every effort is made to ensure the accuracy of the programme specification, the information is liable to change to take advantage of exciting new approaches to teaching and learning as well as developments in industry. If you have been unable to locate the programme specification for the course you are interested in, it will be available as soon as the latest version is ready. Alternatively please contact us for assistance. 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