Sociology at BGU

Our Sociology courses provide a comprehensive and exciting introduction to the study of all aspects of the social world.

Studying Sociology at BGU will take you on a journey from the 19th-century foundations of the discipline through to the social, cultural and political changes that are reshaping our globalising world. Along the way, you’ll see how sociological thinking is crucial for people who want to understand the world around them, whether as students, tuition-fee payers, citizens, employees (or via any of their other social roles).

You won’t ‘just’ be studying sociological theory – you’ll be exploring the ways theories help demystify phenomena like terrorism, nationalism, sexism, surveillance, globalisation and multiculturalism. Similarly, when you study research methods you won’t ‘just’ be studying research methods – you’ll be looking at how those methods are used in the real world by marketing agencies, governments, local councils, advertising agencies, PR companies, polling companies and many others.

For more information on all our Sociology options at BGU, simply fill in the form on this page and we'll do the rest!

Why study Sociology?

  • Highly interactive and practical hands-on degree where you are taught in real world settings. Less theory based work than other similar courses.
  • Assignments are driven by your practical skills and applied to real world situations, as you will undertake client briefs.
  • Collaborative work with other students is encouraged and standard classroom settings are replaced with highly practical and interactive learning.
  • Encouraging your personal development, this course offers you the opportunity to grow and gain self-confidence as you advance your oral and presentation skills.

Careers and Further Study

The wide range of graduate-levels employment related opportunities and positions available to BGU Sociology graduates include activism and campaigning, advertising, arts, bankers (e.g. investment bankers, analysts), charity administrators, community and youth workers, curators, entrepreneurs, film makers, financial analysts, journalists, lawyers, lecturers, marketing, police officers, public relations (PR), researchers, school and college teachers and social workers.

What You Will Study

At BGU you can study Sociology as a single or joint honours degree, giving you an in-depth knowledge of the subject. Depending on your year of entry, options and any potential course combinations, you may study some or all of the following modules in Sociology at BGU.

Writing and Thinking Sociologically
You will receive an introduction to the nature of undergraduate study, and specifically undergraduate sociological study. During scheduled and independent/virtual learning sessions the course will address issues such as: using the internet as an effective research tool; taking effective notes during lectures; how to guard against plagiarism; and successful literature reviewing.

What is (the point of) Sociology?
This module is designed to give you a positive view of the impact that the social sciences have had, and will continue to have, on modern societies, polities, cultures and economies. A broad range of classical and contemporary social and sociological theories are presented with the aim of showcasing the power, promise and potential of a sociological imagination for anyone wishing to understand the world around them and their place within it.

Social Research Skills: Texts and Interactions
A diverse range of qualitative and quantitative research methods for studying two key types of social data (i.e. textual and interactional data) will be discussed, as will their respective strengths and weaknesses. You will also use guided independent study time to produce five minute oral and visual presentations which will be presented to the rest of the class during an assessment session.

Sociology of the Moving Image: Film and Television
During this module, you will become familiar with methods for reading films/television programmes sociologically; that is, as cultural artefacts that can be made to reveal a great deal about the particular economic, political, cultural and social contexts within which they were produced and consumed.

Advanced Social Thought
You will be introduced to a range of the central yet diverse theoretical approaches to the study of society that have been, and still are being developed within sociology. The module will provide you with a critical and reflexive understanding of the importance (as well as the fallibility of) modern and contemporary social and sociological theories to and for understanding and explaining social life.

Public Sociology: Critical Issues in Contemporary Society
During this module, you will gain a sense of how academics have been able to influence policy debates, and learn how to apply the social science understandings developed in lectures and workshops to the critical analysis of public debates. You will also develop the ability to explain some of the ways in which their studies have wider relevance to society.

Discourse and Identity: Local, National and Global Contexts
The module begins with a very broad definition of identity as something that involves the ways in which people display who they are to each other. It then examines a range of environments in which people do ‘identity work’: everyday conversations, institutional settings, narrative and stories, commodified encounters and various spatial locations from the local and the national, to the ‘online’ and ‘offline’.

Professional Contexts
This module will consist of five scheduled workshop sessions that will focus upon career skills and pathways. It will also include a work placement, that is designed to give you an opportunity to explore an area of work and develop (or confirm) your career planning.

Advanced Social Research Skills: Online and Offline Contexts
The aim of the module is to equip you with the skills necessary to undertake empirical social research using both primary and secondary data drawn from online and offline contexts. You will also construct a research proposal suitable for your level 6 dissertation and will undertake empirical social research that draws on primary and/or secondary data.

In Dialogue: Subject Studies across the Arts and Humanities
You will be introduced to the attractions and challenges of interdisciplinary investigation in the arts and humanities, in this case with particular reference to sociology and media studies (as broadly conceived). You will engage with materials and practices within and beyond your chosen subject(s) of study.

Visual Culture, Communication and Commerce
This module is hands-on, practically-oriented and built around a form of problem based learning. Upon completion of this module, you will know how to make most types of video and poster presentations media, and you will also have developed a portfolio of content that may well assist you in entrepreneurial work in the creative and cultural industries.

Surveillance and Society
You will study aspects of the chronological development of surveillance in Western Europe and North America. The module will offer you a range of teaching and learning contexts in which to build understanding of key sociological (and societal) issues.

Sociology of the Body
The module begins by considering key social theories of the body, highlighting perspectives drawn from medical and historical sociology, medical and cultural anthropology, social and political theory and the history of science. You will then consider how those concepts and theories can be put to use ‘in practice’ by examining a series of case-studies drawn from every day, media and popular culture.

Persuasion and Communication
The aim of this module is to provide you with a general introduction to the study of persuasion, before identifying and discussing the major discursive and rhetorical approaches to the study of persuasion as something attempted by various forms of communication. The module will also include ‘practical data sessions’, in which you will put your analytic skills into practice on real world data.

Independent Study
The independent study module provides an opportunity for you to build upon and apply the key intellectual, transferable and practical skills gained at Levels 4 and 5 of the programme to an appropriate study or research project that falls within the remit of sociology. This may be carried out ‘the field’, or it may be library based.

Dissertation
This module will offer you a range of teaching and learning contexts in which to build and demonstrate knowledge and understanding of a key past or present topic that falls within the orbit of sociology. You will also acquire and develop intellectual skills and transferable skills that are relevant to contexts beyond academia.