BA (Hons) Sociology with Foundation Year

This module will introduce you to the thinking of the ‘founding fathers’ of sociology who continue to influence our subject: Karl Marx, Emile Durkheim, Max Weber and W.E.B. Du Bois.  The module begins by considering the historical rise of social theory, its role in the study of society and its significance in sociological analyses.  The subsequent sessions on Marx, Durkheim, Weber and Du Bois will establish the thinking of these masters of sociological thought and assess their relevance in understanding twenty-first century societies. 

This extended induction module supports your transition into university, introducing you to your chosen discipline. You build confidence, develop your academic identity, and understand the expectations of university study. Through the theme GLOCAL you explore how global trends and events unfold in the West Midlands and make links across subject areas. You practice independent learning, digital literacy, and ethical academic conduct in line with university policy as well as reflecting on inclusive practice. The module is structured around themes identified by students as essential to their university experience: Ready to Study: Clear guidance on expectations, transitions, and workload planning. Academic Skills and Educational Gain: Development of time management, critical thinking, and digital fluency. Career Readiness and Professional Identity: Early exploration of career pathways, CV building, and professional behaviours. Personal Development and Belonging: Activities that foster confidence, inclusion, and identity within the university community. Social Engagement and Community Building: Opportunities to connect with peers, staff, and wider university life. Feedback and Reflective Practice: Structured opportunities to receive, apply, and reflect on feedback to support growth. Wellbeing and Student Support: Embedded access to holistic support services and strategies for success. This lays the foundation for the Level 5 Professional Development / placement experiences.

The Sociological Imagination module encourages students to explore society by applying C. Wright-Mills premise of ‘the promise of Sociology’ to their individual lived-experiences. A key focus of the module is to understand how social actors make sense of their worlds, and the meanings individuals attach to objects and their interactions. The module explores how inequalities are experienced in late modernity and the relationship between the individual and society. Students will assess if changes in the organisation of capitalism are equally beneficial for all members of society. As part of the process of learning and self-discovery, students are required to critically reflect on the social structures that enable [liberate] and constrain [repress] their agency, alongside those of the wider social group with which they share a sense of belonging. The module provides a space for students to critically examine the contemporary reproduction of inequalities, which revolve around their culture, age, gender, ethnicity and social class.

This module is about developing your lens and understanding of the rapidly changing world, refining your specialism as a professional or /practitioner and improving your professional facing profile. The module is delivered across specific course groupings that capture the academic standards, core values and employment opportunities of your subject area. This module draws on the well-evidenced benefits of community-facing service learning to the local community, the local economy and you, the student. In this way it supports the University’s Graduate Attributes, providing opportunities to enrich your learning and develop skills for the workplace through engagement in real-world activities. Therefore, across this module you will undertake at least one externally facing activity. That might include live or simulation briefs, placements, virtual placements, community events, or a Collaborative Online International Learning project (COIL) in order to build your graduate attainment, consolidate your subject interest and support your career aspirations. 

The Race, Empire and Modernity module explores the historical and contemporary functions of race and racism in the making of the modern world. The historical focus examines how colonialism developed European Empires, and how violence and ideology were used to extract resources and accumulate wealth from colonised lands. The contemporary focus of the module explores the modern legacy of Empire, from the perspective of racialised, gendered and class[ified] Others. Students taking this module will examine historical racial relationships of power, to understand how racism is reproduced in social interactions, economic market situations and political discourses in the here and now. They will also explore the extent to which racist ideologies are embedded in society’s institutions and structures, and how racism is contested and legitimated in processes and practices. The aim of this module is to enable students to understand the insidious function of racism in the social order. Students will also be able to identify the material consequences of racial inequality, and how social actors can mobilise to ameliorate its impact on individual life-chances and economic opportunities.

This module will consider how – and why – Citizenship has become a contested concept, raising issues of entitlement, stigma and exclusion. It will look at social divisions in UK society, critically examining the relationship between work, identity and citizenship– and how changing working patterns (the introduction of AI and other technologies) - are disproportionately impacting on disadvantaged communities. It will review how welfare services are delivered in the UK, and whether public services are meeting the needs in our society. It will review how social, political and economic forces that have diminished access to public welfare provision, and the increasing role of informal welfare in UK Society, namely family, neighbours and the VCFSE (Voluntary, Community, Faith and Social Enterprise). It will highlight the importance of community-facing practices, such as coproduction and valuing expertise through experience, in welfare service delivery. It will examine the importance of: Inclusive skills, values and competencies needed for paid professionals and volunteers to deliver welfare services, especially to marginalised communities. Reliable information concerning the impact of social disadvantage; Advocacy and coproduction in challenging disadvantage; and Raising awareness of issues that impact on the health, wellbeing and efficacy of citizens locally, nationally and globally.

This module will provide you with an applied understanding of research methods and their utility in the social sciences. You will learn about qualitative, quantitative, and mixed methods research and gain a critical understanding of how these methods can be used to produce rigorous academic research. You will evaluate the strengths and weaknesses of each approach and develop and in-depth understanding of the various methodologies.

The Crime, Deviance and the Risk Society module explores the impact of social and economic changes on contemporary perceptions of criminal and deviant behaviours. The normalisation of risk, in an anything-goes-society, is also examined within the context of public concern about the uncertainty of modern social life. The following are some of the questions investigated in this module. Can crime be considered a rational choice in a money-success orientated society? What is driving the resurgence of biological and genetic explanations of criminal and deviant dispositions? Is social inequality the main causal factor of crime, or is it simply a case of wicked people exist? Is incarceration an occupational hazard in a risk-tolerant society? Is deviance an assessment of free-market risks and rewards? Does crime pay in neoliberal societies, and if so then for whom? These questions are examined within the wider context of power, environment and the labelling, demonisation and criminalisation of racialised, gendered and class[ified] social groups.

In this module, you will examine one of the great sociological issues of our times: global migration. The first part of the module will examine 1) define migration, touch on its history and look at the empirical indicators, statistics, on its extent, 2) discuss selected theories of migration. The second part of this module will look at applied topic areas relevant to the subject, i.e. forced migration and asylum, gender and migration, migrants and economies, the state and immigration control, global warming and migration, migration in British history, and migration and the Black country.

Through this module will expand your knowledge and the ability to apply social theory by examining a selected range of twentieth and twenty-first century theorists. Building on the level 4 Social Theory module, we will look at how various thinkers have taken and extended themes present in classical social theory. Attention will be paid to the emphasis of the theorists on structure and agency in society. Rather than treating the subject matter as an abstract body of knowledge, the module will seek to emphasise how sociological theories of society can be applied to deconstruct significant issues and debates in the here and now.

The Body and Society module allows students to apply an auto-ethnographic lens, which centres their bodies in the contexts of their lived-experiences in different social and institutional settings. The theoretical foundations of this module are Goffman’s dramaturgy and Cooley’s looking-glass self. Students will examine the relationship between society and human bodies by focussing on the following: How are racialised, gendered and class[ified] bodies socially constructed over time and space? How are bodies perceived within relationships of power? How do different institutional and social settings enable and constrain individual agency? The module explores how capitalist processes of historical production and contemporary consumption have developed a fetishism of the body. The body is also examined alongside the impact that ideological and structural processes have on the embodiment of human subjectivity. The aim of the module is for students to develop a critical understanding of how the symbolic meanings and values we attach to human bodies, cannot be fully understood in isolation of transformations in capitalism.