Politics and Social Change BA(Hons)

Year 1 

In your first year we welcome you into the Global Challenges Lab where you learn how to design your own research projects and make films, podcasts and data visualisations. You will also take a range of modules that introduce you to key contemporary politics issues and debates.

Modules

• Foundations in World Politics
• Politics In Practice
• Introduction to the Global Challenges Lab
• Global Challenges Lab: The Global and the Local
• Introduction to Environmental Politics: Climate Catastrophe, Animal Extinction?
• Sex and Politics: Defining Contemporary Issues

Year 2

In your second year, you will continue your research in the Global Challenges Lab and learn how to write political speeches, policy papers and press briefings, and design social media campaigns. You'll begin to specialise in the subjects that interest you most through choosing option modules.

Modules

• UK Politics
• Decolonising the People: Politics in the Twenty-first Century
• Global Challenges Lab: Research Communication
• Global Challenges Lab: Policy Solutions

 Options*

Choose one from:

• Creative Writing: Process and Craft
• Gender, Race and Environment
• Community Engagement
• Unruly Bodies: Understanding and Contesting Normativity

Choose one from:

• Gender and Sexuality
• Global Resistance: Social Movements and Mobilisation
• International Institutions

*Option modules are indicative and may change, depending on timetabling and staff availability.

Final year

In your final year you will further develop your knowledge and skills working to develop a political campaign with an external third sector organisation, aimed at developing your thinking about how civil society groups can make interventions in the political sphere.

You also work on a major independent research project, supported by your academic supervisor. The project is an opportunity for you to develop an idea independently using your creative and digital skills. Option modules provide more opportunities to focus on subjects that interest and intrigue you.

Modules

• Social Change Project
• Activism and Social Change
• Participation, Performance and Politics OR Public Journalism

Options*

Choose one from:

• Community Placement: Theory into Practice
• Global Environmental Politics
• Global Social Policy
• Radical Political Economy and Anarchist Politics

Choose two from:

• A History of Capitalism: The Politics of Property
• Politics in the Middle East
• Human Rights and Humanitarian Intervention
• Refugees and Forced Migration
• Politics of the Right

*Option modules are indicative and may change, depending on timetabling and staff availability.

Meet the team

Dr Rebecca Searle, course leader

Rebecca Searle’s work focuses on the ways in which scholarly research can be used to make critical interventions in the politics of the present. She established and co-ordinates the Housing Forum, an initiative to bring together academics, community organisations and policy makers to develop local solutions to the housing crisis. She leads the crowd sourced research project Who Owns Brighton?, that works with the community to uncover patterns of ownership and investment in a set of recent developments in the city. Her research interests include the housing crisis; the global history of contemporary capitalism; gender and sexuality; the politics of twentieth century Britain; and war and conflict in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries. She is a member of the Centre for Research in Memory, Narrative and Histories, and of the research cluster Understanding Conflict: Forms and Legacies of Violence. Read Rebecca's full profile.

Other staff who teach on the course include: Dr Clare Woodford, Dr Heba Youssef, Dr Chris Wyatt, Prof Mark Devenney, Dr Robin Dunford, Dr German Primera Villamiza, Dr Chrystie Myketiak and Dr Zoe Sutherland.

International requirements and visas

We can help you meet our English language or academic entry requirements.

Visas and immigration advice

Course fees

What's included

You may have to pay additional costs during your studies. The cost of optional activities is not included in your tuition fee and you will need to meet this cost in addition to your fees. A summary of the costs that you may be expected to pay, and what is included in the fee, while studying a course in the School of Humanities are listed here.

• For a number of courses you will have the opportunity to attend field trips and off-site visits. These are optional and are not required to pass your course but under normal circumstances we would expect a budget of approximately £150 per year will cover the costs of particular trips. The amount spent would be based on location and number of trips taken.
• You will have access to computers and necessary software, however many students choose to buy their own hardware, software and accessories. The amount spent will depend on your individual choices but this expenditure is not essential to pass any of our courses.
• In most cases coursework submissions are electronic but you may wish to print notes and should budget up to £150 per year for printing.
• Course books are available from the university but you may wish to budget up to £200 to buy your own copies.

You can chat with our enquiries team through the Stay in touch panel at the end of this page if you require further information. Or check our finance pages for advice about funding and scholarships, as well as more information about fees and advice on international and island fee-paying status.

Info

The fees listed here are for full-time courses beginning in the academic year 2022–23.

Further tuition fees are payable for each subsequent year of study and are subject to an annual increase of no more than 5% or RPI (whichever is the greater). The annual increase for UK students, who are subject to regulated fees, will increase no more than the statutory maximum fee.

You can find out more about our fees in the university's student contract and tuition fee policy (pdf).

The tuition fee you have to pay depends on a number of factors including the kind of course you take, and whether you study full-time or part-time. If you are studying part-time you will normally be charged on a pro rata basis depending on the number of modules you take.

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