STUDY

This module aims to introduce you to key features of the sociological perspective and what many call the sociological imagination. It is concerned with making the everyday strange and the far away near to gain a better grasp on key aspects of social life. This leads into a key concern of sociology with questions of power and inequality. Students will be able to engage with key debates about the nature of inequality and power using contemporary examples and analysis. 

This module introduces you to key university academic skills to set yourself up for the rest of your degree. You will develop your academic skills through practical activities and tasks that relate to your degree. You will also explore core concepts and principles that underpin research in the social sciences. The module has a developmental approach to learning and teaching reinforced through regularly meetings in small groups with your tutor.  

This module describes and explains some of the major social changes over the past 30-40 years using data and ideas. You will study patterns of wider change alongside an exploration of the impact on personal biography, life-satisfaction and wellbeing. You will study the rapid changes in East Asia, the differences with Europe and ways we can think through long term trends in how we live. Learning is organised through a problem-solving approach to get to grips with ideas and data in areas of change as diverse as wellbeing, fertility, family, work, migration and technology.

The human story is a moving story, and we are migratory beings. This module will help you explore the history of people’s movement across the globe. You will explore the causes of migration, its voluntary and forced forms, asylum seeking and the main current global patterns of migration.  You will also learn about patterns of ethnic inequalities with attention to health, education, employment and policing, as well as more convivial ways of living in multicultural societies.

This module gives you a solid foundation in criminology using a topic-based approach. You will examine how we can make sense of crime and criminality and explore key areas of debate and controversy within the discipline of criminology. Crime dominates much discussion on the political and social stage and this module enables you to take part and contribute to these public discussions in an informed and knowledgeable way. You will be able to discuss the cause and nature of crime and criminality. Important practical data skills of mapping crime data are a key part in this module.  

This module allows you to explore the contribution of social and developmental psychology to how we live our lives. Social Psychology is concerned with human social behaviour, experience and thought often focusing on interactions and small groups. Developmental Psychology explores the systematic changes in human psychology across an individual’s lifespan, particularly cognitive, perceptual, social and emotional development in childhood, adolescence and adulthood. 

This module grounds you in the principles of social science research and methods employed to find out about our social world. You will explore the research process and focus on specific methods that interest you and relate to your field of study. This will include being able develop and analyse social surveys and questionnaires, use interviews, and explore already existing data sources. You will gain the knowledge, skills and confidence to undertake independent, ethical and robust research in the social sciences. This module is an important steppingstone to your final year independent project module. 

Social theory allows you to dig deep into the big questions in our social world about how power works, what is the glue that keeps society together most of the time and how and why do societies change. You will harness the power of thinking theoretically to be creative, tackle contemporary issues and open new insights into your social world. We will do this through the ideas of important theorists from the late 20th and early 21st centuries, a few will be familiar like Weber, Du Bois or Durkheim but many new such as Archer, Latour, Chodorow or Luhmann. You will engage with the insightful, often challenging and sometimes counter-intuitive perspectives that come from a range of contemporary social theorists. 

The module aims to equip students to get behind the ‘woolliness’ of much popular discussion of globalisation. For many commentators globalisation is the major force behind social, economic, political and cultural change over the past 30 years. It is also a much-misunderstood concept that provokes much heated debate between those who argue free markets are the motor of globalisation to the constant benefit of humankind, and anti-globalisation critics who see many of the world’s ills stemming from the increase in globalisation. On this module you will need to analyse the arguments, look at the data and make an informed decision about where you stand.

Getting meaningful work is probably one of your key aim when you graduate. Work and employment are also one of the central areas of interest across the social sciences. You will explore your current and future career aspirations, develop a CV and be able to undertake a work placement of work shadowing. You will also complete the Future me programme at the university of Suffolk as part of the module.

This module examines the nature of social justice and the range of policies that have sought to make societies fairer. You will study different conceptions of social justice, including the conceptions advanced Rawls and Sen. The module also explores the welfare state and some of the major policies used to try and increase social justice across a range of dimensions, including housing, education, health, income transfers, pensions and access to legal rights. You will also evaluate the effectiveness of social policies in a variety of countries increasing social justice using international data and evidence. 

This module will encourage students to develop a critical approach to race, racism and resistance from a global perspective, looking not only on concepts and lived experience in the Western countries but also other parts of the world, including Latin American, African and Asian contexts. The module will explore key sites of contemporary racism and anti-racist activism in different areas of the globe. Students will gain insight into postcolonial and decolonial approaches, as well as the intersection of gender, race, class and other categories of difference.

In this module you will produce a final year project that allows you to exercise your independent judgement and skills in the development and execution of a project or dissertation relevant to your field of study. Under the supervision of an assigned tutor, the module provides you with the opportunity to independently apply the core subject knowledge and skills developed over the course of your degree. Over the course of the year you will undertake independent analysis and research, and communicate and present it to high professional standards. This project can take the form of a traditional research dissertation, but you also have the flexibility to undertake an alternative, such as a reflective report based on an independent project pursued in a practice / work setting. 

This module introduces the sociological perspective to the discussion about and the debates on mental illness and the development of the psychiatric treatment and services. The module is focussed on the way policy relates to practice. You will explore historical records of local asylums and hospitals with a field trip to explore previous asylums as part of the module.

Debates about gender and sexuality are global public issues that link private, intimate life with politics, violence and abuse. Great complexity surrounds gender and sexuality in contemporary society and culture and you will explore contemporary academic research in this area to clarify and discuss some of the key debates.  

Victims of Crime allows you to recognise the extent, patterns and impact of victimisation which is fundamental to enable informed discussion regarding crime and deviance. Through exploring the concept of victimisation, the experience of crime victims and developments in response to them, you will have the opportunity to broaden their understanding of contemporary crime and criminal justice. 

The module explores key issues, themes and debates from the field of drugs, crime and society. You will explore established and more recent academic and policy debates surrounding drug use, regulation and criminalisation. It is expected that you will come to the module with a 'taken-for-granted' perspective on the nature of drugs, their links with crime, and their wider social consequences and the module aims to challenge some of these. 

This module will develop your skills in processing large and complex datasets in the social sciences and visualise analysis to distil and convey findings to wide audiences. The module explores the key principles which make for effective data visualisation and communication, and the core workflows involved in processing, analysing and visualising data using appropriate software tools. In addition to developing your skills and competencies in analysing and presenting quantitative data, the module critically examines how quantitative data is used in the social sciences and how its use and presentation affects the development and evaluation of public policy.