Scottish Ethnology

Uncover Scotland's past and help shape its future, while gaining skills that you can apply to any culture.

Ethnology is the study of the culture and traditions of developed societies. It is sometimes described as being at the intersection where history and anthropology meet.

While ethnology is commonly offered in universities across Europe, this is the only full undergraduate programme of its kind in the UK.

Focusing on Scotland, but also looking at comparative material from elsewhere, you will study the varying ways in which a modern European nation expresses itself culturally.
The programme explores questions like:

* how do customs, beliefs, social organisation, language, music and song help to create and shape identity in the modern world?

* how do we use and make sense of the past from within our present?

* how can this understanding help us to shape our future?

Follow in the footsteps of fieldworkers

A highlight of our programme is the chance to work with the rich range of materials in the School of Scottish Studies Archives and Scottish Studies Library.

You will explore the work of former staff and students who, since 1951, have been capturing elements of life in Scotland's farming and fishing communities, towns and cities.

Today, the Archives include:

* 33,000 recordings of songs, music, stories, rhyme and verse in Scots, Gaelic and English, as well as in dialects now extinct

* thousands of photographs and rarely-seen historic documents which capture exceptional and everyday aspects of Scottish culture and heritage

These materials are kept alive through our teaching, undergraduate and postgraduate research, and through the work of our Traditional Artist and Gaelic Writer in Residence.