Sociology

This is a Connected Degree

Portsmouth is the only University in the UK with the flexibility to choose when to do an optional paid placement or self-employed year. Either take a placement in your third year, or finish your studies first and complete a placement in your fourth year. You can decide if and when to take a placement after you've started your course.

Overview

Understand how and why society is changing on this BSc (Hons) Sociology degree course.

Step into critical debates on social issues and inequalities as they vary around the world, including gender and sexuality, race and racism, nationalism and human emotions. Make sense of what’s going on, why it’s happening, and what we can do about it.

On this BSc (Hons) Sociology degree, you’ll learn classical sociological theories and how to apply them to the topics that most inspire you. You'll be taught and supported by the same expert staff and active researchers who introduce you to ideas and concepts in lectures, and encouraged to discuss these with them in more depth alongside other students.

As you work towards your choice of final research project, you'll pick subjects you want to explore further from a wide range of specialist subjects, such as social justice, wellbeing and happiness, and the sociology of education.

You'll graduate with transferable skills sought after by employers across many sectors, as well as the confidence, knowledge and methods to enact positive change within a broad range of careers.

Course highlights

- Tailor your studies to topics that matter most to you – from gender, sexuality, race, and social class, to happiness, the body, and social power and dissent - and be taught by experts in those fields

- Discover ways to apply classical sociological theories, such as developing policies and actions to produce social change and solutions to issues affecting the world right now

- Learn from leading sociologists about their impactful research on key social issues, such as the Researching Migrant Homelessness project

- Hear from industry specialists on topics such as racism, asylum and gender-based violence – recent guest speakers have come from Friends Without Borders and Portsmouth Abuse and Rape Counselling Services (PARCS)

- Build skills that support you to carry out your own research and analysis of issues you're passionate about – previous student dissertations were on the Black Lives Matter movement, online dating, musical taste and K-Pop, happiness and social media, becoming vegan and racism in sport

- Follow an optional media studies pathway, where you could explore topics such as digital cultures and media fandom

- Have the opportunity to do a work placement year after your second or third year on this Connected Degree - we're the only UK university to offer flexible sandwich placements for undergraduates

- Choose to learn a foreign language for free as part of your degree, from a selection of Arabic, British Sign Language, French, German, Italian, Japanese, Mandarin or Spanish

Careers and opportunities

What sectors can you work in with a sociology degree?

Many of our sociology graduates go into people-focused roles, or in roles that allow them to do research, shape social policies or bring about social change.

Areas you could go into include:

- teaching and lecturing (with additional training or further study)

- research and policy

- health and social care

- advertising, marketing and media

- local government

- careers advice, human resources and recruitment

- charity work and community development

What jobs can you do with a sociology degree?

Roles you could go onto include:

- fundraising and project manager

- hr adviser

- housing strategy and policy officer

- social worker

- evidence and evaluation manager

- peer support and young person's service manager

- recruitment consultant

- senior research executive

- marketing manager

- data analyst