Social Science BA(Hons)

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Top reasons to choose this course

• Develop new ways of thinking about the social world by exploring diverse perspectives on the relationship between the individual and society.
• You will be encouraged to ask questions about social situations, challenge assumptions and base decisions on evidence.
• Placement opportunities will give you hands-on work experience and help you stand out to potential employers.

• International exchange opportunities at the University of Lyon 2, France; the Universidad Pontificia Comillas Madrid, Spain; and Örebro Universitet in Sweden.

• You will learn through a variety of methods including lectures, seminars, workshops, student presentations, group work, independent activities, individual and group tutorials, and through research and personal development activities.

• Visiting guest speakers will add to your learning, giving insights into their work and providing networking opportunities. Speakers have come from organisations including:  Eastbourne Foodbank, St Mungo’s, the Troubled Families Programme, Boing Boing and the Trust for Developing Communities. 
• Our Sociology of Brighton lecture series brings speakers who deliver lectures in different locations around Brighton, including the Palace Pier. Content has included sociology of the seaside, LGBTQ spaces, crime and gentrification.
• We work with MindOut, a local LGBT mental health project, to bring a Living Library to the campus. The library is designed to challenge prejudice and stigma and has trained volunteers who act as ‘books’ to help you explore social issues.

Year 1

Year 1 will introduce you to sociology and its application, social policy, social welfare and social inequalities. You will also learn about how social scientists conduct their research and further the knowledge base of their respective disciplines.

Modules

Core modules

• Introduction to Researching Social and Cultural Life

  This module introduces you to key aspects of research design and the principles of qualitative and quantitative research. You will look at the principles of social research (eg, research ethics, quantitative/qualitative divide) and identify appropriate research methods, then apply these to specific contexts (eg, evaluating existing work, proposing new work).

• Contemporary Social Inequalities

  This module will provide you with the theoretical and conceptual tools to confront normative/normalising explanations of difference and inequality. You will examine the ways that ‘differences’ and inequalities are formed and their consequences for everyday lived realities.

• Social Policy and Social Welfare

  This module introduces you to the study of social policy and the main components of the welfare state. Focusing on service provision, you will look at the complexity of forming and implementing social policy within the UK, noting and discussing the policy divergences which have occurred since devolution. The module will embrace a wide and inclusive understanding of the subject to engage and challenge your thinking.

• Foundations of Sociology

  This module will equip you with an understanding of traditional sociological theory and its applications today. You will study the foundations of sociology, including the key thinkers, debates and theoretical perspectives. You’ll also examine the development of classical ideas and the continued relevance for different sociological perspectives throughout the twentieth century as well as recent challenges to traditional sociological theory.

Options*

• Developmental Psychology

  This module addresses key issues in child development and lifespan development to provide you with an introduction to the field of developmental psychology. You will examine issues from infancy through middle childhood to adulthood, exploring how people develop through time. Content covers the broad themes of history and theories of childhood development; cognitive development; development through the lifespan; social development; culture and development; and atypical development.

• Sociological Imaginations

  This module will introduce you to contemporary ‘sociological imaginations’ of the social world and will give you the opportunity to apply sociological theories and concepts to contemporary topics. You will develop your ability to think sociologically by first understanding key sociological concepts and then exploring how these are applied in contemporary sociological research examples.

• Introduction to Applied Psychology

  You will look at the basic approaches and theories within psychology and consider issues of application in the field. Areas covered include an introduction to applied psychology; cyberpsychology; clinical and counselling psychology; community psychology; gender and sexuality; health psychology; forensic psychology; and positive psychology.

• Criminal Justice Matters

  This module will introduce you to the criminal justice system in England and Wales by exploring its main institutions and agencies, for example, police, courts, prison and probation. You will explore some of the key debates and policies in relation to sentencing, victims and crime prevention. You’ll also gain an understanding of the politics and controversies in criminal justice and develop your skills in identifying, analysing information and presenting coherent arguments.

• Theories of Crime

  Here you will examine criminological theories from an historical perspective and gain an understanding of the political, social and cultural contexts in which different theories were developed, how they translated to policy, and their strengths, weaknesses and biases in explaining crime and deviance.

• Comparative Political Systems

  On this module you will be introduced to some of the key features of politics including institutions, political actors and political processes. You’ll identify the most important political hallmarks, for example the legislature, the executive, political parties and electoral processes in at least two contemporary states that illustrate democratic, partially democratic or/and authoritarian political systems. You’ll also study political concepts, such as power and the state, in order to analyse and compare those political systems.

• Political Ideas

  This module gives a broad overview of the academic study of politics. You will focus on core concepts of political science and political theory and apply these to political processes, institutions, ideologies and the nature of political change. You’ll cover the core conceptual material needed for more advanced study in politics and also be introduced to ideas and approaches that can be applied in other social sciences.

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

Year 2

In your second year you will be able to choose the subjects that interest you most through option modules.

Modules

Core modules

• Theorising the Social World

  This module introduces contemporary sociological and social theory, looking at debates around neo-liberalism and the individualisation thesis, including consumption, choice, freedom, notions of the self and globalisation. You will also explore the relevance of gender, race and intersectionality, social class and different notions of the self.

• Social and Cultural Research Practice

  In this module you will learn about qualitative, quantitative and mixed methods of research and then have the option to study either more advanced quantitative methods or more advanced qualitative methods. You will gain experience in the design and practice of research and the skills to develop a research proposal for your final-year dissertation.

Options*

• Community Engagement: Theory into Practice

  At the heart of this module is a 50-hour voluntary placement within a local, not for profit organisation. You will explore community engagement theory, reflect on your personal values and aspirations and develop a range of transferable employability skills through both theory and practice.

• Topics for Contemporary Debate

  In this module, you will learn about different modes and techniques of academic criticism and debate, in particular methodological, theoretical, ethical and ideological. You will choose a topic from a list offered by the module team and develop and write a literature review addressing an area within this topic. Each topic is contextualised in wider social science and humanities debates and set within current academic debate in its field.

• Global Cultures

  This module addresses globalisation from a socio-cultural perspective. It looks at global cultures from different theoretical perspectives drawing from sociology, anthropology and cultural studies, and global processes from a historical and contemporary viewpoint. Areas of study will include global capitalism and social inequality, mobility in the context of globalisation and local identities and global lives.

• Authority, Democracy and Justice

  Authority, Democracy and Justice builds on your understanding of political theory, bringing in key authors in their historical context and examining core concepts in depth. It focuses on critiques of democracy, addressing the question of political obligation and the social contract, and bringing to the fore Marxist and anarchist analyses of democracy. You will also explore social justice, entitlement theory and economic democracy.

• Critical Perspectives on Justice

  This module introduces perspectives on justice as a foundation for other criminology modules. You will explore long-standing and emerging developments and debates relating to justice in the UK and elsewhere and look at ‘mainstream’ criminal justice and new ways of resolving criminal and social harms, including approaches drawn from non-Western traditions. You will also consider the struggles that some segments of society face to secure justice and the factors influencing this.

• UK Politics

  This module will give you an understanding of the role, form and evolution of the contemporary British state. It takes as its starting point the post-war settlement and Westminster Model and looks at key developments in the form of the state and its influences, including the rise of the New Right, globalisation, governance and devolution.

• Gender and Power

  This module introduces you to the sociological study of gender, examining in particular the relationship between gender and power in society. Topics include an introduction to gender; examinations of feminism; explorations of masculinities and femininities; and analysis of the relationship between gender and everyday life, such as labour, the body, intimacy and violence.

• Self and Society: Conceptualising Subjectivity

  You will undertake a critical exploration of the central arguments concerning the development of the self during this module, including the psychoanalytic accounts of the self as formulated by Freud. You will examine key Freudian concepts including the unconscious, repression, infantile sexuality and identification. You will also evaluate the possible political implications of psychoanalytic thought in relation to feminism, queer theory and Marxism.

• Sociology and the Life Course

  This module examines areas of significant sociological interest and introduces you to contemporary areas of study using different models of academic criticism and evaluation. Key topics covered include life course versus lifecycle; competing theories of childhood; cross-cultural perspectives on youth; debates around the changing nature of work in a global society; and debates within the sociology of death, including around euthanasia.

• Psychology Mental Health and Distress

  This module covers psychological understandings of mental health and distress. It looks at the role of biology, culture and history in the formulation of mental health problems and the role and validity of diagnoses in clinical management. It also evaluates psychological explanations, personal experiences and interventions for mental health and distress.

• Nations and Nationalism

  This module will introduce you to political understandings of the nation and the phenomenon of nationalism. You will explore the historical construction of nationalism as imagined and analyse how nationalism matters for states and societies. You'll differentiate between the state and the nation and analyse the impact of nationalism in terms of conflict, identity, power and representation. The module will focus on the key thinkers on nationalism and seminal texts on the subject.

• International Institutions

  This module focuses on key contemporary international institutions including the United Nations and the European Union and examines how different actors – including states, diplomats, non-governmental organisations and social movements – interact within these institutions. By looking at how decisions are made, you will explore questions of power, democracy and governance in a changing international order. The module will include at least one model United Nations event.

• Mobilisation, Movements and Protest

  This module explores different theories of how groups mobilise in order to generate or resist social change and the factors that prompt such mobilisation. The scope of the module includes groups challenging political, economic, social and cultural structures; a range of mobilisation modes, from those addressing state institutions to those generating their own forms of social organisation; and mobilisations in local, national, global and mediated contexts.

• Policing and Society

  With a focus on contemporary Britain, this module examines the role of the police and explores a range of themes, issues and debates in a critical-analytical fashion. You will look at current and historical research on dilemmas in contemporary policing including a history of British policing, police ethics, police powers and citizens’ rights, policing in diverse societies and alternative or global models of harm reduction.

• Punishment, Power and the State

  In this module you will learn to apply critical thinking and key criminological concepts to the use of punishment in the criminal justice process. You will look at the penal system and the rationale for its use; examine the history of prisons, how punishment is decided upon and delivered; the prison demographic; the wider implications of the penal system; and the alternatives to orthodox punishment.

• Debates and Conflicts in Criminology

  In this module you will evolve your ability to undertake independent inquiry and engage with academic literature. You will produce an independently researched literature review with a focus on intersectional perspectives in criminology, including feminist, anti-racist and decolonial approaches. The module provides a valuable stepping stone in your development of critical reading and literature reviewing.

• Community Engagement: Theory into Practice

  At the heart of this module is a 50-hour voluntary placement within a local, not for profit organisation. You will explore community engagement theory, reflect on your personal values and aspirations and develop a range of transferable employability skills through both theory and practice.

• Sociology Skills

  You will reflect on your own sociological skills and select a number of short courses to take, each of which addresses a specific skill. These might include reading sociology; writing a sociological literature review; essay crafting for sociology; thinking critically in sociological work; applying and generating sociological theory; literature searching for sociology; and interpreting the social world.

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

Placements

Spend a year on placement

Gain valuable experience and earn money during an optional placement year following year 2. You’ll return to the final year of your degree with added confidence, real-world experience and valuable contacts. 

A placement year significantly improves your CV, giving you a distinct advantage over others when applying for jobs and starting your career. It will also help you to develop the softer skills such as communication and teamwork.

For the assessed part of your placement, you will create a reflective piece of work on professional practice and skills. 

The university has links with a wide range of organisations including in health, culture and heritage, housing, councils, the police, the probation service, policy think tanks and charities.

Our dedicated Placements and Employability team will support you in getting a placement that meets with your interests and career ambitions. They can help with CVs and cover letter writing, applications, online testing and more. Plus, they’ll provide support and guidance when you’re on placement and make sure that everything is going well.

Other placement opportunities

In your second year the Community Engagement option module offers the opportunity to engage with a local not-for-profit organisation and gain valuable hands-on experience. It’s a great opportunity to develop your vocational skills and gain practical work experience while contributing to the wider community. 

You will spend around 50 hours volunteering with an organisation, often working with vulnerable people, in sometimes challenging situations. This will be supported and underpinned by organisational training, tutor support and by in-class teaching covering theories of community engagement, organisational structure and culture, and reflective learning. 

Previous students have had placements with organisations including:

• CCHF All About Kids

• Centre for Ecotherapy

• Connect

• Samaritans

• MS Society

• Fresh Start

• Alzheimer’s Society

• Sussex Prisoners’ Families

• Age UK

• YMCA

• MindOut

• Trust for Developing Communities

• Healthwatch Brighton & Hove.

Final year

The final year dissertation is your opportunity to analyse a topic of interest at length. The rest of the curriculum consists largely of option modules, allowing you further room to specialise.

Modules

Core modules

• Global Social Policy

  You will learn about contemporary developments and challenges for human wellbeing and social policy at the global level during this module. It looks at supranational, regional, national and local contexts of social policy provision, the relationship of monetary and fiscal policy and policy transfer. The module applies theoretical frameworks and concepts from the social sciences, including social policy, politics, sociology and area studies.

• Dissertation

  This enquiry-based module requires you to write a fully developed, researched and evidenced academic dissertation on a topic of your choice related to your degree programme. You will demonstrate the research, data handling, critical thinking, organisational and writing skills you have developed over the course of your undergraduate study.

Options*

• Sociology Topic 1

  This module will enable you to study an area of sociological interest structured around analysis of a significant issue related to current sociology. Drawing on the sociological knowledge you gained in your first and second years, you’ll apply concepts and theories to a specific topic and integrate research materials to reach your own conclusions. Topics could include childhood and society; race and ethnicity; religion and society; death and society; and class and conflict in contemporary Britain.

• Contemporary Studies in Crime and Justice

  In this module you will choose to study two topics which will vary each year to reflect developments within criminology and criminal justice and the evolving research interests of the criminology team. Possible subjects may include miscarriages of justice, decolonial, postcolonial and Southern perspectives, gangs, victims and victimology, the politics of crime and justice and drug trafficking.

• Community Wellbeing and Social Justice

  This module looks at the practices, values and theories underpinning a social justice approach to community wellbeing and the diverse approaches used by psychologists to address inequalities-based challenges to wellbeing. It will cover topics including empowerment, marginalisation, participatory action research and creative methods. The module culminates in a Festival of Social Justice, in which you will work with other students to present social justice issues.

• Violence and Society

  In Violence and Society, you will examine how patterns of power, control and dominance permeate society and impact on our social understandings and experiences of violence. You will gain an understanding of the key themes and issues around violence and its macro, cultural and embodied manifestations. By the end of the module, you’ll have a critical awareness of violence as constructed at different levels of society and in different arenas.

• Radical Political Economy and Anarchist Politics

  This module provides an in-depth and critical examination of political economy and anarchism theories, introducing classical theories of political economy and presenting a range of alternatives from the political left and right. It also assesses the contribution of anarchist politics from different established perspectives.

• Society and Outer Space

  Drawing insights from across the social sciences and humanities, this module explores the argument that societies are produced in relation to the rest of the universe. It covers a range of work from anthropological perspectives on cosmology, through studies of the role of satellites in warfare, communications and surveillance, to analysis of space fiction and the representation of aliens.

• Class and Power

  The study of social class and power is a central concern of sociology, and this module examines ways of measuring class and whether social mobility exists in modern Western societies. It will explore how successful classical sociologists were in theorising class and provide you with advanced social scientific perspectives on class and power. Content might include measuring social class; Marx on class and power; gender and class; race and class; and the underclass.

• Sociology of Globalisation

  This module explores the emergence of globalisation and considers the implications of living in an increasingly globalised world. You will develop a critical appreciation of current theories, issues and debates around the subject and explore the way in which globalisation has arguably become the central idea in trying to understand the social changes that we are living through today.

• Politics of the Right

  This module examines the history and theory of the right to shed light on its contemporary political manifestations. It considers the history, theory and practice of conservatism, nationalism, fascism, neoliberalism and the New Right and examines the new modes the right has utilised in the twenty-first century and what impact these have had.

• Care Ethics and Social Policy

  This module will explore debates about responsibilities for care, the relationship between care and social justice and the personal and interpersonal impact of caregiving. It will draw on research into caregiving, social policy analysis of individual versus collective responsibilities and a feminist ethic of care that emphasises it as a moral practice with political implications.

• Sociology and the Climate Emergency

  It is increasingly clear that the climate emergency must be addressed at least in part by social change. Social science, and sociology in particular, can help us understand this and work towards achieving such change. During this module you will look at the social aspects of the climate emergency and use sociology to understand the roots and consequences of climate change.

• Sociology Topic 2

  In this module, you will study an area of sociological interest structured around the analysis of a significant issue appropriate to current sociology. Drawing on the sociological knowledge you gained in your first and second years, you’ll apply concepts and theories to a specific topic and integrate research materials to reach your own conclusions. Topics could include families and parenting; cities and society; sex and society; human rights; and health and society.

• Ecopsychology and Ecotherapy

  The focus of this module is the relationship between humans, wellbeing and the natural environment set against the backdrop of climate change and wider ecological crisis. You will consider work in psychology and the social sciences which address these issues and how they interrelate, as well as looking at related practical interventions.

• Sexualities

  This module will involve studying theoretical and methodological approaches to sex and sexualities, including biological, sexological, postmodern, feminist and queer perspectives. You will examine the role of psychology in defining ‘normal’ or ‘transgressive’ sexualities in historical and political contexts and explore social meanings and cultural representations of sexuality and how these intersect with gender ideologies.

• Politics in the Middle East

  This module focuses on key debates in the study of Middle Eastern politics, taking a largely thematic approach to politics in the region and exploring relevant case studies within these themes. Topics under analysis include the legacies of colonialism; independence movements and nationalism; political economy; the role of religion in politics; and questions of democracy and authoritarianism.

• Utopian Theory and Practice

  This module explores the relationship between Utopian thought and practice and introduces classical critiques of Utopianism that draw attention to its dangers, as well as work identifying its positive functions. You will critically evaluate these perspectives and the ways in which ‘the Utopian’ is being reimagined in contemporary theory and practice.

• Human Rights

  This module explores the historical emergence and significance of human rights and the development of key institutions such as the United Nations. You will look at significant historical events and consider some contemporary rights issues such as free speech, minority rights, women’s rights and social justice. We will also focus on the events of 9/11 and the sidelining of human rights in the name of national security, global civil society and online rights issues.

• Class and Conflict in Contemporary Britain

  In this module you will explore the new sociologies of class and apply them to examples of class conflict in contemporary Britain. You will engage with current debates within class analysis such as the role of the media in the reproduction of class disgust, the impact of gentrification on the lived experience of class inequality and the power of oppressed classes to revolt.

• Race and International Relations

  The place of ‘race’ and its different connotations in the discipline and practice of international relations (IR) is currently the topic of a lot of scholarly research and debate. This module will investigate how conventional IR is subjectively racialised as white and how the production of whiteness in IR significantly constrains our collective capacities to understand world politics.

• Criminology of Borders

  This module applies criminological perspectives to issues associated with migration, its control and its impact on society. You will reflect on the limits of criminology as a discipline and consider the involvement of criminal justice agencies and policies in border control and the criminalisation of migration. You will also explore the construction of irregular migration as ‘deviant’, consider the intersection of immigration and criminal law and look at theoretical understandings of race, colonialism and citizenship.

• Global Issues: Harm, Crime and Power

  This module takes the study of criminology beyond mainstream conceptions of crime, power and harm to enable you to critically analyse a range of contemporary global issues, from human rights abuses to corporate environmental harms. This will give you fresh insights into and new criminological understandings of these global phenomena.

• Cyberpsychology

  In this module you will explore how interactive technologies affect an individual’s sense of self, experience of relationships and psychological wellbeing. You will also reflect on your own use of interactive media – such as mobile phones, video games, online games, interactive TV, email – and how this shapes your psychological experience.

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

Lab facilities

Mithras House has a series of lab rooms which can be used for teaching on your course or in your independent research work.

Life lab
A skills-based lab for practice-based teaching, social work, psychotherapy and counselling, and employability. The Life lab is fitted with lounge furniture to provide a comfortable space for conducting qualitative research with larger groups. The lab can be used to conduct research activities with children of all ages and can be used for meetings and events. The room also contains a dedicated space to conduct assessed role play or interviews with children.

City lab
This is a qualitative research methods and creative methods resource for all students, staff and researchers, as well as research participants, including children, community groups and the general public. It can also be used for meetings and events. The City lab contains a kitchen, a teaching/meeting room with enhanced acoustic isolation and two meeting spaces that can be separated with a screen or combined to accommodate larger groups.

Design lab
Housing our extensive collection of historic dress and textiles, which are used in some teaching on our History of Art and Design courses, this has the space and equipment for you to work on textile projects. Displays created by students on these programmes are on view in the social spaces of the building.

Community lab
A space designed for collaborative student learning, this is used by students and staff involved in the university’s Global Challenges programme – our collective mission to contribute towards solutions to tackle the pressing issues facing our world.

Stats lab
A specialist workspace with computing equipment for statistical analysis and projects involving video and audio editing software. The lab contains eight acoustically treated booths for both recording and transcribing interviews undertaken as part of dissertation research and for recording and editing podcasts.

Stats lab
A specialist workspace with computing equipment for statistical analysis and projects involving video and audio editing software. The lab contains eight acoustically treated booths for both recording and transcribing interviews undertaken as part of dissertation research and for recording and editing podcasts.

Applied cognition lab
A dedicated research space for psychological research involving measures such as electrodermal activity (EDA) and electroencephalography (EEG). The space is designed to allow the participant and researcher to sit at separate desks whilst psychophysiological data is being collected. 

VR and eye tracking lab
The VR and Eye-Tracking Lab is used for psychological research using equipment, such as eye-trackers and virtual reality headsets. The space has adjustable lighting and a blackout blind for maintaining consistent lighting conditions during eye-tracking research, as well as sensors set up in the room to allow individuals to move freely around the room during virtual reality research.

Take a video tour of the labs with technicians Andrea and Grace 

Meet the team

Stephanie Fleischer, course leader

“I am a great believer in bridging the gaps between subjects, and in the social sciences we refer to various disciplines, theories and perspectives which highlight the complexity of social issues.

“I have been teaching research methods for many years, which are a central part of the social science degree. Findings not only provide answers to phenomena in society but also raise new questions about the world we live in.”

Other members of the teaching team include:

• Dr Steven Brown, sociologist
• Dr Hannah Thurston, criminologist
• Dr Kerry Fox, psychologist
• Dr James Ormrod, sociologist
• Dr Robin Jervis, political scientist

Course fees

The fees listed here are for the first year of full-time study if you start your course in the academic year 2025–26.

You will pay fees for each year of your course. Some fees may increase each year.

UK undergraduate and some postgraduate fees are regulated by the UK government and increases will not be more than the maximum amount allowed. Course fees that are not regulated may increase each year by up to 5% or RPI (whichever is higher).

If you are studying part-time your fee will usually be calculated based on the number of modules that you take.

Find out more

• Brighton Boost – cost of living help for our new undergrad students. Find out about how we can help with your study, accommodation or travel costs and more...
• Fees, bursaries, scholarships and government funding info for UK and international undergraduate students
• Student finance and budgeting while studying
• Read our student contract and tuition fee policy (pdf) for more on University of Brighton tuition fees.

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