Sociology - BA (Hons)

Sociology is an exciting and illuminating field of study that attempts to analyse and explain the most important social, cultural and political questions of our time. This module provides you with the opportunity to develop your knowledge and understanding of a range of sociological issues that currently dominate both the social and political climate. Throughout this module you will be encouraged to develop your skills as an independent learner and be given the opportunity to demonstrate your knowledge within an assessment that gets you producing a public or third sector video campaign that uses sociological insights to address a current social and/or political issue.

Popular culture refers to the cultural form of ordinary people and is shaped by the interactions between people in their everyday activities: styles of dress, the use of slang, greeting rituals and the foods that people eat. Popular culture is also informed by the mass media and in this module, we will consider how the media and popular culture can act to confirm or resist dominant ideologies produced in society. We will explore and analyse a wide range of mass mediated and everyday culture. You will learn and apply a range of methods of cultural analysis to the study of contemporary media, culture, and the cultural sociology of everyday life.

Sociology has tended to ignore role of social space in shaping the lives and experiences of individuals in society, often seeing it as the background against which sets of social relations play out. In recent decades, however, space has become a dominant interpretive paradigm within sociology. This ‘spatial turn’ is a product of transdisciplinary working; drawing on ideas from human geography, community studies, and philosophy, a sociology of space has emerged to understand the dynamism of space as shaping social and cultural life.

This module begins with questioning what applied sociological research is, what is its meaning and rationale and value in a social context. In this regard, this module explores the principles of sociological research strategies and designs, and how these principles may be applied in practice. Within the module there is a focus on qualitative methodologies, which will encourage students to clarify how research questions, strategies, methods and forms of analysis influence each other. Students are expected to complete and follow ethical procedures as part of this module.

This is a core module and it introduces students to a range of contemporary social and sociological theories and links these theories to their historical and social contexts. It develops students’ in-depth knowledge and understanding of the origins of and rationale for these theories, and enables students to appreciate the relevance of these theories to an analysis of contemporary social life. By the end of the module, students should not only have a good understanding of these theories but also demonstrate an ability to apply them to the world around them and also to the topics and issues raised in other modules.

This module equips you with an understanding of citizenship theory and theories of race and ethnicity. The module looks at how political, civil, social, and cultural rights have been inflected by governmental and social questions of racialization and cultural diversity. These focal points will help facilitate historical and contemporary knowledge of rights, racism and anti-racism in Britain. You will gain an understanding of the local and global role the British state has played in shaping, as well as hindering, citizenship. You will also gain an understanding of how the politics of anti-racist struggles have varied historically. You will have the opportunity to apply key theoretical frameworks for analysing historical and contemporary examples. Teaching provision consists of lectures, seminars, and student-led presentation sessions.

This module provides students with an opportunity to experience real world work. It is expected that the placement (and placement related activities) will occupy students for a minimum of 128 hours in total: typically, 16 hours per week over 8 weeks. All placements are to be agreed by the University. Employers will be asked to help define the task(s) to be completed by the student on placement. Students will be encouraged to secure their own placement opportunities with the assistance of the module staff.

This module will introduce you to critical theories around education. You will learn about dominant discourses of education as schooling and the relationship between institutional approaches to education and neoliberalism. A critical appraisal of contemporary education policy and practice will be undertaken by drawing on the relevance of critical scholars such as Paulo Freire, Henry Giroux, Peter McLaren, bell hooks and Jonathan Kozol. Underpinning this critical appraisal will be an understanding that social justice (including but not restricted to racial, sexual, gender, ability, religious, geographic, and economic inequality) informs the application of critical pedagogical theories.

In this module, Food, Neoliberalism and Welfare, you will learn how and why the welfare system in the UK has changed over the past two decades. The module will provide a social and historical framework to discussions about the ideological consensus that brought about the establishment of the welfare system in the UK and will contextualise these changes within the broader debates regarding neoliberalism; its influence in shaping economic policies in the UK (with reference to other Western democracies where relevant), and debates regarding food poverty and food insecurity. It will consider the consequences of these changes for those groups who have historically had some contact with or have directly engaged with the welfare system.

This module is designed to provide you with the opportunity to undertake a credit bearing, 40- week Professional Placement as an integral part of your Undergraduate Degree.    The purpose of the Professional Placement is to improve your employability skills which will, through the placement experience, allow you to evidence your professional skills, attitudes and behaviours at the point of entry to the postgraduate job market.  Furthermore, by completing the Professional Placement, you will be able to develop and enhance your understanding of the professional work environment, relevant to your chosen field of study, and reflect critically on your own professional skills development within the workplace. 

The module provides students with an opportunity to explore concepts, research and debates in relation to globalisation, people and society. The module encourages students to develop a critical approach to thinking about globalisation as a set of social and historical processes which shape (and may be shaped by) the economic, political, cultural and ecological dimensions of social life.

From the conceptual to the grounded, the module then explores the social consequences of globalisation with reference to selected themes and topics in and with relevance to sociology to include: the exercise of economic and political power; forms of political organisation and governance; the dynamics and effects of economic development; the creation of social divisions and inequality; cultural transformations; identity and belonging; population movements; urban and rural life; ecological change. The module closes with a consideration of conjectures on social futures in a globalising world.

The aim of this module is to provide students with a critical understanding of how the concepts of ‘self’ and ‘identity’ are continually shaped, regulated and maintained through varying aspects of identity formation, social divisions and inequalities. The module focuses on sociological approaches to exploring the ‘self’ and ‘identity’ in a social context.

Students are encouraged to develop an appreciation of the ways that identities are fluid, complex and, multifaceted. Within the teaching and learning aspects of the module, students are encouraged to consider the ways in which cultural, political, social and economic contexts impact on their own and others’ identities through mediated practices, processes and discourse.

The aim of this module is to provide a framework for you to undertake a substantial disciplinary-relevant project. It is founded upon Birmingham City University’s teaching and learning philosophy which integrates theory and practice.

This is an optional module concentrating on cultural sociology with specific reference to music. The module will provide students with an in-depth introduction to some of the key sociological ideas and perspectives on music, and it will focus on three main themes: the social and historical settings in which musical forms are produced and consumed; music in relation to identity and politics; and the political economy of music.

By the end of the module, students should have a good understanding of the social functions, and significance, of music. Key issues we will explore include: the influence of class, race and gender on musical styles; music in its relationship with sub-cultural groups and as a force for political expression; and the commodification of popular music. Alongside considering these issues, we will be listening to a variety of music.

Activism and social movements have attempted to address a wide range of social problems and influence social change. Historically, movements have had significant influence on social relations and social policy.

This module will critically investigate a range of social movements and activism from the past and present in order to better understand these movements and their internal processes and external contexts. Various theories will be explored in order to get a good grasp of what brings about social movements, how they operate, and when they succeed.

The module explores and examines the historical context which produced the Black Arts Movement in the UK. It aligns with the aims of the Black Studies degree programme as it focusses on a social movement, and discusses the contribution that artists from the African diaspora have contributed to visual culture. By engaging with a range of intellectual perspectives that contributed to the development of the Black Arts Movement, students will have the opportunity to understand how, in the case of the Black Arts Movement, intellectual thought and artistic production are symbiotic.

Using international urban case studies, Global Cities is an advanced urban sociology module building upon the imagination and skills developed through City, Community, Culture (L4 focusing on Birmingham); Space and Place (L5, focusing on spatial theory) and Crime in the City (L5, focusing on urban criminology). The module introduces students to cutting-edge urban studies thinking via research informed teaching. Each week will focus on a new city and a new topic, encouraging students to expand their global horizon of urban issues, as well as enabling them to compare, contrast, and expand their learning across different case studies. The module aims to provide students with the skills and insight necessary to face a new era of ‘planetary urbanism’ and the unique challenges this era presents for city governance and society. In particular, the module will focus on issues of inequality, social injustice, as well as both implicit and explicit urban divisions and conflicts.  

The module provides you with an introduction to postcolonial studies. The module gives you an overview of how European colonialism operated, legacies of colonialism in the present, and contestations of these legacies. It examines the writings of key thinkers in postcolonial studies as well as the applicability of their ideas for interpreting and critiquing contemporary politics. The module has a transnational focus. It engages with Anglo-American, Western European, Latin American, Chinese, South Asian, North African, and Australasian postcolonial contexts. Focus is placed on the empirical postcolonial developments and scholarship that emanate from these regions. You are thereby exposed to key historical and contemporary political issues across national borders. Teaching provision consists of lectures, seminars, and student-led presentation sessions. Guest lectures and optional cross-university readings groups will supplement the learning.  

This module will be of interest to students who wish to explore and gain a critical understanding of the social world through visual culture. It will discuss the power of texts to influence and shape both historical and contemporary social contexts and is informed by debates that address the increasing significance of visual communications and the need to develop visual literacy in the contemporary world. We are increasingly exposed to a phenomenal array of sophisticated visual texts, and therefore the module aims to explore how visual meanings are made and how meanings are communicated.