BA (Hons) Sociology

Year 2 Core Modules

You must study and pass all three core modules

Brief description

Introduction to the work of three key social theorists of the 19th and early 20th centuries, Karl Marx, Max Weber and Emile Durkheim. Their work is used to critically illustrate the nature of capitalist modernity and the foundations of contemporary sociological theory and practice.

Module content:

• Karl Marx: Capitalism, Workers` Movement and The Communist Manifesto (1848); Dialectics, Fetishism and the Purpose of Critique; Value, Labour, Money; Capital, Surplus Value and Exploitation; Primitive Accumulation, the Logic of Separation and the Question of Crisis; Class Struggle, Revolution and Communism.
• Max Weber: Introduction: contextual overview and biography; The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism; Conception of sociology and methodology; Bureaucratisation and rationalisation; Class, status and party; Political sociology: power, legitimacy and the state.
• Emile Durkheim: Introduction: contextual overview and biography; The Rules of Sociological Method; Suicide; The Division of Labour in Society; Morality and Religion; Crime, Deviance and the Law.

Brief description

Media discourses of criminal activity and the state. 

Module content:

• Crimes of the Powerful: The state as criminal actor.
• Media, Crime and Power: Investigative Journalism, Corruption and the Political Process.
• State Corporate Corruption.
• The Nation State and Violence.
• Terrorism and Counter Terrorism in the Global War on Terror.
• Crimes Against Humanity.
• Transnational Organised Crime.
• The Geopolitical War on Drugs.
• Urban Legends, Conspiracy theories and other Stigmatised Knowledge.

Brief description

The way in which people's lives are inter-twined with the digital revolution from a sociological perspective.

Module content: 

• Everyday digital life: The sociological significance of the incorporation of digital technology within everyday practices. Examples include: shopping and consumption, education, and games and entertainment.
• The digital self: This aspect of the module considers the use and impact of digital technology on the ways in which online identities are fashioned, primarily through the use of social media.
• Contemporary issues: This aspect of the module considers controversial and/or contemporary issues such as: the (ab)use of 'big data', bots and the Turing Test, higher education and the 'University of Google', trust and reputation online, data-mapped selves.

Year 2 Option Modules

You must study and pass one pair of option modules for either Criminology or Psychology

Criminological Theories I - The Positive Criminal

Brief description

Introduction to a range of theoretical approaches that explain crime, deviance and criminal behaviour. The particular focus is on the construction of the positive criminal. 

Module content: 

• Classical criminology: Crime as free will. Social Contact, Beccaria and Bentham. 
• Biological positivism: Explores the work of Lombroso and the Italian School of Criminology and  the continued attraction of biological explanations of Criminality. 
• Anomie and crime: Durkheim, Merton and Anomie. 
• Social disorganisation theory: Chicago School, particularly the work of Clifford Shaw. 
• Differential association and differential organisation: Sutherlands critique of Social Disorganisation.
• Juvenile delinquency and subcultural explanations of criminality: Examine both the American and British research on Subcultures and Crime. 
• Matza and the critique of positivism.

Criminological Theories II - Crime, Power and Social Change

Brief description

The emergence and development of key criminological perspectives of continuing relevance for the understanding of crime and processes of criminalisation. 

Module content: 

• Challenging criminological positivism: Labelling perspectives, Marxism and crisis, The New Criminology / Radical Criminology. 
• Theorising and managing crime and criminality: Left realism, Right realism, Control theories, Situational crime prevention. 
• Innovation in criminological theory: Feminist criminology, Critical criminology / Green Criminology, Cultural criminology.

Cognitive and Social Perspectives in Psychology

Brief description

Introduction to the cognitive and social aspects of the British Psychological Society (BPS) core curriculum. Cognitive psychology encompasses much of what are considered ‘mental processes’. These processes range from relatively low-level processes of perception to higher level things like memory and decision making. Social psychology is the study of how we process information about others, and the biases that influence this processing.

Module content:

• Conceptual and historical perspectives in cognition: Origins of research in cognition, and cognitive neuropsychology. Understanding how cognitive processes operate in different brain areas.
• Neural architectures: Neurones, receptive fields and vision. How does the brain connect the world outside with our thoughts and experiences?
• Perception and recognition: The recognition of objects and faces.
• Attention: Is cognition a limited resource to be allocated carefully or do we attend to everything?
• Learning and memory: What circumstances determine how we learn new information? How is this information stored in our brains and how do we access this information while reasoning?
• Decision making and problem solving: How do we choose responses; how do we solve problems?
• Conceptual and historical issues in social psychology: Defining social cognition and social behaviour. Understanding classic and contemporary approaches, and the social processing biases they reveal.
• Pro- and anti-social behaviour: Exploring the influence of social learning on aggression and the social factors that influence helping behaviour.
• Attitudes and social influences: Understanding attitudes and the attitude-behaviour link, routes to attitude change. Conformity and obedience.
• Social identity, stereotypes and prejudice: Exploring the impact of social identity on perception and behaviour. Stereotypes, prejudice and discrimination.

Essential Research Methods and Analysis for Psychology

Develop further the knowledge and skills required to design, conduct, analyse and report quantitative and qualitative psychological research in American Psychological Association (APA) format.

Module content:

• Methods of research: Main quantitative and qualitative research methods available to psychologists; Use in applied settings; advantages and disadvantages.
• The experimental method: Variables and levels; hypotheses; design - basic and advanced; control techniques; validity and reliability in experimentation; ethics in experimentation.
• Data analysis - descriptive statistics: Data types; measures of central tendency; measures of dispersion; normal distribution; graphing data; confidence intervals.
• Data analysis - inferential statistics: Test selection; parametric and nonparametric 2-sample test of difference; Within and Between one-way ANOVA and Non-parametric ANOVA, effect size; power; correlation; Tests of both internal and external reliability; inter rater reliability.
• Qualitative methods: Types of qualitative research techniques; questionnaire design, interviewing - types, advantages, disadvantages; analysing interview material.
• Quantitative methods: Experimental method, two variable tests of difference (parametric and non-parametric), tests of relationships (parametric and non-parametric); multilevel testing (parametric and non-parametric), follow up testing (parametric and non-parametric). Reliability analysis using Cronbach’s alpha, quantitative content analysis, item analysis.
• Ethics: Creating and conducting ethical research based on BPS Ethical Guidelines.
• Reporting research: Sections and content of an APA formatted psychology lab report; APA referencing.
• Information searching: Structured and unstructured search; Search using the Internet and locating electronic journals using the university library system and appropriate data bases.
• IT skills: Designing a lab report template using Word for Windows; using SPSS for data analysis.

Years 1 and 2 Elective Modules

You must study and pass one elective module of your choosing

Introduction of the concept of smart cities - hard infrastructure, social capital including local skills and community institutions, and digital technologies to fuel sustainable economic development and provide an attractive environment for all.

Module content:

• Social impacts

There is an overall need for theoretical and methodological plurality in how we assess the impact and value of future cities in terms for individual and societal well−being. Gaps in our understanding relate to the complex ways individuals and groups engage with built and natural settings, the cultural goods and consequent benefits that may arise and the inequalities associated with these cultural benefits.

• Security

Different types of cyber-attacks that could be launched against a Smart City. Impact of cyber-attacks. Approaches to securing the smart grid and critical infrastructure, i.e. improving cyber resilience.

• Sustainable urban food production

Includes the long established allotments movement to large-scale projects based on sustainability throughout the food chain. Urban food production includes the long established allotments movement. The demand for urban growing also responds to the densification and intensification of living areas, due to population rise, migration and demographic aging with lower housing and ‘garden’ space standards placing greater importance on collective production.

• Energy, waste and water

At present, water and wastewater facilities are often the largest and most energy intensive responsibilities owned and operated by local governments, representing up to 35% of municipal energy use. Future cities will need to utilise more sustainable methods of water and wastewater management and renewable energy production.

• Digital technologies

​Digital technologies will play a major role in creating sustainable and resilient cities offering a vehicle for more inclusive decision−making process and promoting dialog amongst architects, urban planners, the public and technologists.

Develop a range of skills, knowledge and techniques within the natural, technological and social sciences relevant to the study of environmental sustainability and life in the twenty-first century. Understand the critical issues that confront humanity and begin to discern appropriate responses.

Module content:
• The challenge of sustainable development
Problems associated with life in the 21st Century and the relationship to scientific provisionalism and uncertainty.

• The genesis of sustainable development concept
Developments associated with the Club of Rome are outlined while Limits to Growth and the Tragedy of the Commons.

• Evolution of sustainable development
The Reo Summit and Suitability, and Policy Developments thereof.

• Scientific inquiry and sustainable development
Controversial issues like climate change, oil peak, and food production and the role of science in helping delimit them as problematic.

• Mainstreaming sustainability
Sustainability and Mitigation, Adaptation and Resilience, as individual and social concerns, and their role in transformation.

• Communicating sustainability
Human well-being, Environmental Justice, Environmental Policy and the practicalities of Sustainability in Scotland.

• Sustainable development in practice
Community Empowerment associated with Land Reform. Energy Production and Food Production in Tayside.

• Ethics and sustainability policy
Active citizenship and globalisation.

• Innovating locally, transforming globally
Transformations required to embrace Sustainability.

• Active relationship for sustainable futures
Thinking globally, acting locally.

How lifestyle can effect physical and mental well-being. This module enables you to reflect on your own lifestyle choices and how to incorporate good health behaviours into your life.

Module content:

• Sleep and stress
  The impact of sleep and stress on health and performance. Completion of sleep diaries and questionnaires related to sleep patterns and stress.
   
• Physical activity
  Current physical activity recommendations, components of physical fitness.
   
• Physical inactivity
  Understanding why people are inactive. The link between physical inactivity, obesity and type 2 diabetes.
   
• Physical activity and mental well-being
  The effects of physical activity on mental well-being.
   
• The effect of carbohydrate consumption and exercise on blood glucose
  Measurement and recording of blood glucose in response to the carbohydrate ingestion and exercise.
   
• Simple health and fitness testing
  Measurement and recording of data. Tests will include blood pressure, strength, endurance and flexibility. Data will be compared with normative values for these tests.

Develop critical thinking skills that form the basis for progression across the academic disciplines of the university. Learn how to recognise, construct, evaluate, criticise and defend different forms of argument.

Module content:
•    Potential 'timeless' debates 
Debates delivered by internal and external experts on: e.g. existence of God; privacy and civil society; private property; money as source of 'evil'; nature/nurture; free speech; pornography; capital punishment; prostitution; animal experimentation; meaning of justice; abortion; affirmative action; just war; trade union power; good life/good political community; human nature; monarchy; value of democracy; meaning of equality; citizenship rights.

•    Potential 'timely' debates
Debates delivered by internal and external experts on: eg, Scottish independence, academic freedom; drug legalisation; drug use in sport; immigration; free health care; war on terror; EU membership; euthanasia; progressive taxation; race and gender discrimination; gay marriage; human rights; politics/sport; global warming; internet censorship; nuclear power; education league tables; nuclear weapons; GM agriculture; religion; cloning; fair trade; value of contemporary culture.

•    Critical thinking seminars
Follow-up discursive discipline specific seminar sessions led by teaching staff on topics covered in formal debates. Learn to identify types of argument presented, evaluate perspectives and to reflect upon their own reasoning processes and value assumptions. The debates and seminars facilitate a foundation for the acquisition of graduate attributes.

•    WEB CT Wiki discussion forum
Work in small groups to write a short 800 word indicative "Thinking Summary" online Wiki of the arguments presented in each debate. These summaries will be constructed by each designated Thinking Group of three students using the Wiki facility on Blackboard which will facilitate further discussion on the moderated WEB CT discussion forum.

The social, managerial, economic, political, and technical challenges and opportunities associated with emerging renewable energy innovation, production, supply and consumption.

Module content:
•    Renewable energy non-technical challenges and opportunities
Social and political challenges and opportunities of renewable energy production supply and consumption. Economic and environmental challenges of renewable energy production supply and consumption. Strategic and managerial challenges of renewable energy production supply and consumption.

•    Renewable energy technological challenges and opportunities
Geotechnical, Geophysical and Hydrographic information; Knowledge of sources of hydrographic information and interpretation of published charts. Forces on structures; Appreciation of the various forces acting on marine structures. Technical limitations and challenges of energy distribution systems and energy storage. Current technological development trend, collaborative innovation in renewable energy.

An understanding of the concepts of tolerance, and the importance of making sound ethical decisions. Develop the qualities, characteristics and skills to meet the aspiration for Abertay graduates to become global and active citizens. 

Module content:
•    Introduction to equality and ethics legislation 

•    Diversity competence and moral/ethical reasoning 
Inclusiveness, equal opportunities, positive action, reasonable adjustment.

•    Attributes for the workplace and for global citizenship.

•    Reflective practice 
Application of models of reflective practice.

•    Contemporary issues

Learn how to adjust language to suit context. Analyse a range of linguistic issues, including “proper English”, how language can be used to create moral panics, and the ethics of communication.

Module content:

•    “Good English”
The role of standardisation, dialect and idiolect − how we choose language to reflect our identities and our role in a speech or discourse community.

• Language and influence
How the media constructs narratives to persuade or inform the audience (and how to tell the difference).

• Creating a narrative across genres
The conventions, freedoms and limitations of different forms; using these forms in new ways.

• Narrative changes over time
How authors reinvent old stories to reflect current concerns.

• Technical writing
The use and manipulation of data; hearing the author's voice; critiquing "bad science".

• The ethics of communication
 (Electronic) media and ownership, attribution and theft.

“Personal” digital safety to make computer security fun, practical and eye-opening.  Learn the base knowledge that will continue to be relevant to future generations of devices.

Module content:
•    Current state of computer security
An overview including legal aspects.

•    Cyber-attacks, vulnerabilities and threats
Malware, Network attacks (denial of service, packet sniffing etc.), bots and rootkits. How the bad guys can obtain your password.

•    Information leakage
Recovery and forensics recovering deleted or corrupted files. What your browser knows about you. Web browser forensics.

•    Securing networks, accounts and devices
Defence against malware, honeypots, Secure protocols, intrusion detection, Password security, Mobile device security.

•    Human aspects of cyber security 
The Psychology of Hackers, Social Engineering, identity theft, Usability vs security.

•    Breaking the code
An introduction to cryptography, Encryption and Decryption, public and private keys, the key exchange problem.

•    History of cryptography 
The Caesar cipher, polyalphabetic ciphers, the Playfair cipher, the role of Enigma and the Bletchley Park cryptographers in WWII.

•    Computers and Crypto Diffie-Hellman and RSA encryption
Phil Zimmerman and “Pretty Good Protection". Quantum Cryptography – Provably unbreakable information hiding. Mathematical Underpinnings – Large prime numbers and why they matter.

•    Steganography
 A picture's worth a thousand words when you're hiding the wood in the trees.

•    The law, society and cryptography 
Why you can be imprisoned for forgetting your password. The Civil Liberties Arguments for and against strong-crypto. International perspectives on information hiding, information freedom, the right to privacy and the conflicts between these. Are unbreakable cyphers an unqualified “good thing”?

Develop perspectives on the key challenges faced by humankind such as environmental change, pollution, food security, energy provision, conflicts, terrorism, emerging diseases, and changing demographics. Understand the overwhelming complexity of the problems and the need for interdisciplinary approaches to create solutions.

Module content:

• Interdisciplinary research
  Introductory lectures will discuss the definitions, methods, benefits, challenges, and drawbacks of disciplinary and interdisciplinary approaches and the role of public policy influencing research
   
• Global challenges
  Challenges from different disciplines. Examples include: Climate Change: causes and impact; Serious Games: science and application of visualization and games; Global Security: valuing ecosystems: balancing policy, economics and environment; Contemporary Challenges to Healthy Living; Food Security: global threats and local needs; Energy Poverty: space travel.

Design an activity to communicate and present scientific principles to primary school children. Learn about working as a group and how to communicate complex ideas.

Module content:
• Developing a science communication activity
Target audience, sources of information to identify suitable activities (CfE documentation etc.), health and safety, issues around working with specific groups, accessibility, ethics, costing and sustainability.

• The landscape of engagement and current practice
Types of public engagement activities, target audiences, funding, role of learned societies, universities and other bodies. Public engagement in Dundee and Tayside.

Work in a team to develop game design concepts for serious applications. Gain the knowledge, processes and techniques of game design and study examples of serious games developed to benefit society.

Module content:
•    Overview of Games
A brief history of games, game art and gamification.

•    Games for change
Understanding how games can benefit society.

•    Game mechanics
Deconstructing core components of popular game genres.

•    Gameplay constructs
What is gameplay and how is this broken down and communicated within the game design.

•    The game design process
Conceptualisation, iteration, phases of workflow.

•    Game design theory and practice
Identifying the elements within effective design and how they are implemented.

•    Documenting the design interactive
Oriented design, technical design, capturing requirements.

•    Business models
Exploring methods that can be used to generate revenue within the game design.

Develop the knowledge and awareness required to make good career decisions and the skills and confidence to successfully navigate each stage of the recruitment process for graduate jobs.

Module content:

• Developing self-awareness
  Profiling of personal strengths, values and priorities in relation to career choice.
   
• Developing opportunity awareness
  Generating career ideas based on your personal profile; Exploring the range of graduate opportunities within job sectors of interest; Reviewing occupations that are directly related to your own subject discipline.
   
• Developing a career action plan
  Matching your personal profile with best fit opportunities in the job market; Creating a timeline of actions to improve your prospects of meeting your aim.

• Developing job seeking skills
  Sourcing suitable job opportunities - both advertised and unadvertised; Creating a professional image online; Identifying the skills and qualities employers look for in graduates; Learning how to produce targeted applications for specific job roles; Practising the presentation of your strengths and motivations in face to face selection activities.

Learn about natural disaster such as landslides and flooding, structural disasters such as the Tay Rail Bridge and the system of critical infrastructure (such as road, rail, air and shipping transport networks, power grid, gas and water networks, health system) that constitute the backbone of modern societies.

Module content:
•    Overview of the scope and the content of concept of critical infrastructure failure during natural disasters and resilience against such failures
The consequences of geophysical, hydrological and meteorological disasters on critical infrastructure and critical infrastructure protection capabilities against natural disasters. Interdependencies of critical infrastructures during large disasters, presents a brief review of current research being done in this field, and presents a methodology to address interdependencies.

•    The identification of the vulnerabilities of the critical systems
The critical systems upon which modern society, economy, and polity depend. The identification of the vulnerabilities of these systems threats that might exploit these vulnerabilities. The effort to develop techniques to mitigate these vulnerabilities through improved design.

•     Flooding in Scotland
General overview of fluvial, pluvial and coastal flooding, the structural, economic and societal impact and responses to flooding. Resources will include historical examples, current policies and information (including SEPA flood maps). Case study (with virtual/actual field visit?) the Perth Floods of 1990 and 1993 and the Perth flood defence scheme*

•    Landslide origins, types and mitigations
General overview what landslides are, why they happen and what can be done to prevent them.

•    Structural failure
An example such as why the Tay Bridge failed and what it meant for the Forth Rail Bridge.

•    Reports and investigations
The role of reports in accident and disaster investigations in creating informative reports; case studies of accidents, disasters, learning from history, learning from case studies, learning from common law

Introduction to the skills and knowledge needed to launch a small business successfully. This module will define and help you acquire the personal and professional skills needed to develop a professional career and/or to succeed as entrepreneurs in Small and Medium sized Enterprises (SMEs).

Module content:

• Understanding entrepreneurship.
   
• Generating successful business ideas.
   
• Environmental scanning.
   
• Developing a credible business plan that includes evaluating business ideas.
   
• Presenting the business idea.

An understanding of some of the processes involved in food production. Discuss common misconceptions and ideas which present the food and nutritional industries in a bad light.

Module content:
•    Student led investigations
Student led investigations of the different sectors within the food and drink industry including: prebiotics – and the controversy surrounding the term; if barbequing is a healthy cooking method; and exposing the celebrity chef - common Myths about cooking.

•    Consumerism
Does the food industry listen to us? Understanding consumer and sensory science to better understand why you buy the products you buy.  How food/public health is reported by the media? The French paradox / Mediterranean diet.

•    Future of food
Ethical food production and the future of foods, and what’s waste got to do with it?

•    Debunking myths
Debunking food myths, more science than science fiction in our food today, like the science behind getting sauce out of a bottle and what to drink – Whisky or Beer?

•    Facts from fiction
Finding facts from fiction, investigating the three-second rule – should I eat things that have fallen on the floor? What’s so super about super-foods? Fat or sugar: Which is worse?

Learn how we approach and understand mental health, from historic, social, therapeutic, and individual perspectives. Explore questions such as ‘what is madness?’, ‘how does society position people with mental illness?’, and ‘how do we best respond to challenges to our mental health?’

Module content:

• Historical and cultural perspective on mental illness
  How do we ‘think’ about mental health, and mental ill health?
   
• Diagnosis and the anti-psychiatry movement
  Who holds the power to decide what is normal in terms of psychological well-being and behaviour?
   
• Gender, culture and mental health
  How gendered cultural expectations and representations influence how we respond to mental health issues.
   
• Media representations
  The impact of film and literature on attitudes and understandings of mental health.
   
• Resilience, treatment and recovery
  Common mental health problems in the UK, treatment and management, and frameworks for enhancing well-being and resilience.

An introduction to the wide range of disciplines in forensic investigation. Learn how crimes are investigated from the moment of reporting through to the presentation of the evidence in court. A hypothetical case study provides an over-arching framework in which to explore the critical aspects of forensic investigations. It involves not only physical and electronic evidence, but also statements from witnesses, suspects and victims which requires cross discipline collaboration of professionals.

Module content:
• Crime scene investigation
How a crime scene is examined in the context of incomplete contextual information and to avoid loss or contamination of evidence and the maximising of the value of evidential material.

• Media involvement
Positive and negative effects of the media/public interest in the crime.

• Forensic biology
Examination and evidential value of body fluids, DNA, hairs and fibres.

• Forensic chemistry
Analysis for drugs, toxicological analysis, firearms, explosives, and trace evidence.

• Digital sources
Evidence from CCT, mobile phones, computer hardware, on−line behaviour.

• Forensic reasoning and practice
An introduction to forensic problem solving, thinking styles, case assessment and interpretation.

• Psychology of witnesses and suspects
False confessions, offender profiling, effects and avoidance of cognitive bias in forensic science through process design.

Year 3 Core Modules

You must study and pass all four core modules

Brief description

The arguments of leading schools of social theory. Develop your analytical capacities by discussing and further elaborating some of the main developments in social thought over the past half century.

Module content:

• Norbert Elias and the Civilising Process: The Civilising Process in Context; The State and the De-Civilising Process.
• The Frankfurt School and Critical Theory: Traditional and Critical Theory; Walter Benjamin: `Theses on the Philosophy of History’.
• Relational Sociology of Pierre Bourdieu: `The Real is Relational’: Habitus, Doxa, Field and Capital; Bourdieu and the Field of Culture.
• Foucault: History, Power, Knowledge; Discipline and Punish.
• Postmodernism: Postmodernism & Postmodernity; Habermas: Rejecting Postmodernism and Reconstructing Modernity.

Brief description

The history of race and racism in 19th, 20th and 21st century Britain, from the 'Scramble for Africa' through the postwar/post-colonial period to the present. Examine the various forces, processes and discourses through which race, ethnicity and the racialised subject have been constructed, shaped and changed. Also examine theoretical approaches to and debates about race and ethnicity, racism, race relations and anti-racism, and how these have developed in response to both historical developments and social-political activism.

Module content: 

• The concept and construction of race and ethnicity: The concept and construction of race and ethnicity, and the production of racial knowledge from the colonial period to the present.
• Race, ethnicity and nation: The (re)construction and relationship between race, ethnicity and nation in Britain in light of postwar/ post-colonial immigration and the end of empire.
• Race, ethnicity and identity: The politics, construction and expression of racial and ethnic identities in post-colonial Britain in response to colonialism, migration, discrimination and racism.
• Race and class: The relationship between race and class as sites of social-political identification, power, inequality, political struggle and analysis, as well as debates over which is the most effective framework for analysis and activism.
• Race and gender: The relationship between race and gender as sites of social-political identification, power, inequality, political struggle and analysis, as well as debates over which is the most effective framework for analysis and activism.
• Race, crime, civil unrest and political protest: The relationship (within analysis and representation) between race, the law, crime, civil unrest and political protest against socioeconomic conditions, policing and state policy.
• Anti-racism, race relations and multiculturalism: The history and development of anti-racist and race relations discourses, activism, strategies and legislation, how they have attempted to combat forms of racism, discrimination and inequality, and debates surrounding them.
• Race, ethnicity and the politics of popular culture: Popular culture (e.g. music, film or television) in terms of postcolonial cultural politics, multiculturalism, representation, identity and political activism.

Brief description

To provide students with a sociological understanding of gender and gender relations.

Module content: 

• History of gender and sexuality: Trace the development of the making of modern gender and sexuality.
• The social construction of gender and sexuality: Critique of gender and sexuality essentialism, the construction of modern gender relations and categories of sexuality.
• Masculinity: Hegemonic masculinity, the universal man and the masculine other.
• Gender and Sexuality in the modern world.

Brief description

The importance of empirical research to the social sciences. Learn to identify and use appropriate data collection tools, apply analysis techniques to data generated and reflect upon their meaning, relevance and ethical implications.

Module content:

• Principles of quantitative research: The elements of statistical data, how quantitative data is collected, structured and presented, how inferences and conclusions can be drawn through the application of basic statistical tests and how SPSS software can facilitate the organisation and analysis of quantitative data.
• Qualitative data collection skills: An overview of qualitative data-collection methods, how such techniques are applicable in an array of different ways to different research contexts and how you should reflect upon yourself as an active participant in these kinds of research endeavours.
• Approaches to qualitative data analysis: Engage in the analysis of data produced using qualitative data collection techniques. The main emphasis here will be on thematic coding and how qualitative researchers use sociological knowledge to inductive derive systematic meaning from the data they generate. The use of NVivo computer software in qualitative data analysis.
• Research ethics and ethical issues: Research ethics and ethical issues in terms of research subject matter, the application of data collection methods, how research can impact in different ways upon research participants and wider society, as well as the formal ethical guidelines and requirements that govern sociological research.

Year 3 Option Modules

You must study and pass two option modules of your choosing, one from Group A and one from Group B.

Brief description

The processes of framing and production of the mass mediation of propaganda. Analyse the propaganda text as socio-cultural narratives rooted in the political histories of nation states. Give critical reflection to propaganda effects on target populations, audiences and consumers.

Module content:

• The historical emergence of modern propaganda forms: The historical development of propaganda forms, rhetorics, tropes and ideology.
• The analysis of propaganda: Frameworks and models for analysing and researching propaganda including textual analysis, semiotics, historical archaeology.
• Propaganda and mass media: Mass media as means of the organisation, production and circulation of propaganda, focussing on the propaganda techniques of the Third Reich.
• Propaganda, narrative and myth: Structural analysis of narrative and myth/ideological systems and their representation as propaganda.
• Public relations and propaganda: This section of the module considers what the Public Relations guru, Edward Bernays, referred to as propaganda for peace. Illustrative topics covered include: the individual as the target of the mass media, the rise of public relations, consumerism, the engineering of consent, psychoanalysis and the manipulation desires, generating opinions in the media, focus groups and lifestyles, the rise of the brand, visual culture and product aesthetics.

Brief description

Criminological and sociological perspectives on drug governance and addiction

Module content:

• Historical, political and social contexts of drugs consumption and governance: Historical contexts in the growth of drug consumption and its governance. State and criminal justice drugs policy in the UK. 12 step and other recovery movements.
• Theorising addiction: Freedom, compulsion and willpower. Neuropharmacology (and its critics) the social construction of addiction. Sociological approaches.
• Case studies: Heroin and opioids. Smoking and anti-smoking. Alcohol.

Brief description

Like all other nations, Scotland is seen as possessing a distinctive culture and civil society but unlike others, it has not had state apparatus to serve this culture and civics. Explore this contradiction while at the same time, analytically engage with current attempts to deal with it - the development of Devolution. 

Module content: 

• Nationalism and national identity in Scotland: Current theoretical developments in relation to understanding nationalism and their play in helping understand political change in Scotland.
• Scotland as icon.
• Egalitarianism and the civic tradition.
• Modernity and industrialisation: Scotland of the 20th century.
• ​The politics of national identity.
• Tourism and heritage.
• Class in Scotland.
• Is there room for Britishness.
• Scotland in the media.
• Self-reflective practice.

Brief description

Introduction to the study of surveillance and cybercrime using a perspective that sees technologies as socially constructed. An analysis of the ways in which surveillance, cybercrime and cybersecurity can be seen as socio-technical assemblages.

Module content: 

• Concepts on the social study of technology: such as (a) Social Construction of Technology (b) Technological Determinism (c) Actor-Network Theory.
• Case studies in surveillance: such as (a) Automation of surveillance (b) Algorithmic Surveillance (c) Dataveillance.
• Case studies in cybercrime and security: such as: (a) malware software (b) security policies and mechanisms (c) Encryption (d) the Dark Web (e) manipulation of trust and reputation.

Year 4 Core Modules

You must study and pass all three core modules

Brief description

Conduct and present a simple research investigation into a sociological topic of your choice. Devise and conduct a piece of independent research, write a 10000 word dissertation and publicly present your research findings.

Module content:

• Research design: Selecting the appropriate method for a specified topic and conducting actual research - with guidance from project supervisor.
• Reviewing literature: Collecting evidence within relevant field of research and its application to the field of study.
• Analysing and interpreting data: Collecting, dealing with and understanding data; turning data into words and/or numbers - with guidance from project supervisor.
• Presenting findings: Making research findings ‘public’; writing-up your project - with guidance from project supervisor.

Brief description

The question of power in modern societies - the key theme which lies at the heart of political sociology. The module is divided into four inter- connected sections: sociological and political theories of power; social configurations of power; alternative visions of power relations; and social movements and the contestation of power.

Module content:

• Lectures: The lecture programme is divided into four key sections: Sociological and political theories of power; States, citizenship, rights and the law; Alternative visions of power relations - utopia and dystopia; Contesting power - social movements and political protest.
• Tutorials: Students will be required to read set literature each week and to bring notes and points of contention from lectures to tutorials for discussion.

Brief description

Culture has become the watchword of our age. Builds on earlier study of the sociology of culture to inform a critique of the relationship between culture, crisis and civilisation.

Module content:

• Civilisation and crisis: The relationship between the concepts of crisis and civilisation.
• Civilisation, civil society and the enlightenment: The role of the concepts of civilisation and civil society in political change and the emergence of the public sphere in Europe and America.
• Culture and the critique of civilisation: The role of the aesthetic as a special lens for the critique of modernity and morality.
• Sociology of culture: The role of classical sociology in the crisis of and disenchantment with European civilisation and nationalism.
• Relational sociology and culture: A sociology of cultural relations turns attention to issues of power, process, symbolic and physical violence, and the roles of nationalism, economy and the state.

Year 4 Option Modules

You must study and pass two option modules of your choosing, one from Group A and one from Group B, OR the Community Links (SOC410) module.

Brief description

Key economic and social processes from a critical sociological perspective.

Module content:

• Work: Work in classical and contemporary social theory, work or labour, the ontology of labour, abstract and concrete labour, intellectual and manual labour, the accumulation of labour and the degradation of women, unemployment and the refusal of work.
• Class: The sociological approaches to class from Adam Smith to Max Weber; class and the stratification of British society; class as a critical concept; class, social constitution and the logic of separation.
• Global economy: Globalisation and critical political economy, Fordism and Post-Fordism, the rise and fall of Keynesianism, Neo-liberalism, the politics of money and the expansion of credit, global capital and crisis.

Brief description

Understand the language of crime through conversation analysis, discourse analysis and Wittgensteinian arguments about the public nature of language use, such as insults and bullying. Consider philosophical issues, contemporary studies, debates and critiques in relation to crime and other issues.

Module content:

• Conversation analysis: The roots of conversation analysis in ethnomethodology and the study of social order at the local level. The nature of the conversation analytic approach is examined alongside in terms of classic and contemporary studies. Studies examined include topics such as police interrogations, counsel and witness courtroom interaction, sexual consent and refusals.
• Discourse analysis: The different approaches to discourse analysis: from conversation analytic to critical approaches. The nature of these are explored through contemporary studies including topics such as: criminal speech acts such as conspiracy, threats, solicitation, swearing and offensive language; police talk about trauma; youth crime in the media; constructing the legitimacy of whistleblowers; phishing emails; the reporting of intimate partner violence.
• Wittgenstein and Ordinary Language Philosophy: The resurgence of interest in Wittgenstein's approach to language use. The focus is on the reference to language games and includes consideration of topics such as the law and vagueness; the problem of abusive language, the conceptual instability of consent.

Brief description

Analysis of the socio-ideological discourses contained in popular cultural narratives that deal with crime, justice, punishment and morality.

Module content:

• Morbid fascination: The social world, crime and culture.
• Popular culture and ideologies of crime: The criminal body to the social body in accounts of crime.
• The emergence of the detective: Modernity and the rise of the detective, from the science of deduction to the hard-boiled tradition and beyond.
• Crime and the city: The construction of the city as criminogenic; surveillance and danger.
• Punishment, order and justice: Law versus order, retribution and justice.
• Moral orders: The criminal as an ambivalent.

Brief description

The significance of human rights in the world today. Gain a grounding in human rights from a social theoretical perspective, including current debates and trends in human rights.

Module content:

• History and theory of human rights: Classical origins in Greece and Rome. Classical liberal thought. The French and American Revolutions. Marx. Critical Social Theory. Postcolonialism.
• Human rights in transition: Human rights in armed conflict. Responsibility to protect. Refugees and asylum seekers. Genocide and torture, The International Criminal Court.

Brief description

Changing attitudes to death, dying and killing. Examine the connections between power and the right to take or preserve life and how death and killing are represented and legitimated in various contexts.

Module content:

• The death-denial thesis: Changing ideas of death and dying from pre-modernity to postmodernity Death denial and ambivalence. The sequestration of death. The 'revival' of death.
• Social, political and legal constructions of death: State crime and deviance, militarism.
• Death and representation: Conflict, commemoration and public memorialising. Death and popular culture, representations of war and death in news.
• Death and power: The social mechanisms of oppression, consent and legitimation that determine when, how and why people kill and die; Terror Genocide.
• Bioethics and politics: The sanctity of life versus the quality of life. The politics of 'ethical' decisions about life and death. Capital punishment.

Brief description

An opportunity to take up a volunteer/work placement in a public or voluntary sector organisation throughout your fourth year.

Module content:

• Student defined content: The learning will be shaped by the organisation in which you are placed and the role you are assigned.
• Work experience: Gain valuable employability skills.
• Job-seeking skills: Guidance on producing professional CVs.