Sociology

Entry requirements

You will typically need an upper second-class honours degree or an international equivalent in any discipline.

If you are currently completing a degree, we understand that your final grade may be higher than the interim grades or module/unit grades you have achieved during your studies to date.

We will consider your application if your interim grades are currently slightly lower than the programme's entry requirements and may make you an aspirational offer. This offer would be at the standard level, so you would need to achieve the standard entry requirements by the end of your degree.

We will also consider your application if your final overall achieved grade is slightly lower than the programme's entry requirement.

If you have at least one of the following, please include your CV (curriculum vitae / résumé) when you apply, showing details of your relevant qualifications:

• evidence of significant, relevant work experience in one of the following sectors: NGOs, Government Departments, Think Tanks, Social Research Institutes (minimum of six months in a paid or voluntary role);
• a postgraduate qualification in any discipline.

Months of entry

September

Course content

Extend your core sociological knowledge and gain specialised understanding of sociology if your background is in a related area.

Develop your critical use and comprehension of social theory, while gaining a grounding in methodologies and techniques of enquiry. Focus on distinctive, substantive sociological topics, such as ethnicity, multiculturalism, gender, sexuality, social movement, digital and technology, religion, and culture.

Explore major contemporary frameworks for conceptualising social relations, including how they conceive human beings and ‘the social’, what they consider important to explain – everyday interactions, the orderliness of routine life, broadscale inequalities, the reproduction of domination, large-scale transformations or all of the above – and how they go about explaining it.

Choose from in-depth modules exploring themes such as philosophy and research design, contemporary identities, digital economy, global transformations, climate change and foreign policy.

Be challenged and inspired by internationally renowned scholars addressing some of the most important topics that face us today. Join a diverse, innovative community that's building the tools to create positive change in the world.

Benefit from close academic supervision while you pursue a sociological project of your choice in greater depth and make your contribution to human knowledge through your dissertation.

Graduate with a better understanding of yourself and others – their motivations, their beliefs, their decisions and their identities, ready to decode the assumptions underpinning social research and to better formulate coherent questions for your own.

Information for international students

See international equivalent qualifications on the International Office website.

Fees and funding

Further information on funding for prospective UK and international postgraduate students.