Anthropology and Sociology
Durham University
UCAS Code: LL36 | Bachelor of Arts (with Honours) - BA (Hons)
Entry requirements
A level
Applicants taking Science A-levels that include a practical component will be required to take and pass this as a condition of entry. This refers only to English A Levels.
Access to HE Diploma
We require 60 credits with a minimum of 45 credits at level 3 (or equivalent). Applicants may be required to meet additional subject-specific requirements for particular courses at Durham.
Cambridge International Pre-U Certificate - Principal
International Baccalaureate Diploma Programme
Seventeen points (6, 6, 5) from Higher Level subjects.
Leaving Certificate - Higher Level (Ireland) (first awarded in 2017)
OCR Cambridge Technical Extended Diploma
Pearson BTEC Level 3 National Extended Diploma (first teaching from September 2016)
Scottish Advanced Higher
Scottish Higher
We will normally make offers based on Advanced Highers. If an applicant has not been able to take 3 Advanced Highers, offers may be made with a combination of Advanced Highers and Highers, or on a number of Highers.
UCAS Tariff
We've calculated how many Ucas points you'll need for this course.
About this course
There are several areas of overlap between Anthropology and Sociology, making them particularly suitable for combination in a joint honours degree. The BA Anthropology and Sociology course combines modules from the BA Anthropology and BA Sociology providing a comprehensive understanding of humans as social and cultural beings.
**Year 1**
In the first year, you take a selection of modules from across the two Departments (i.e. Anthropology and Sociology):
Compulsory theory modules: People and Cultures and/or Classical Sociological Theory
Compulsory research modules: Doing Anthropological Research or Social Research Methods
Optional modules:
Being Human / Critical Scholarship in the Social Sciences / Health, Illness and Society /Human Evolution and Diversity / Introduction to Criminological Theory / Societies in Transition (double module)
**Year 2**
Students currently select a mixture of modules from both Anthropology and Sociology, either split evenly or weighted towards one or the other disciplines, including compulsory research training in either Anthropology or Sociology as preparation for the final year dissertation module.
Compulsory research modules: Research Methods in Action (double module) or Anthropological Field Course / Interrogating Anthropology
Optional modules currently available in Sociology:
Communities and Social Justice / Contemporary Criminological Theory / Modern and Contemporary Sociological Theory / Police and Policing / Self, Identity and Society / Sociology of Education / Sociological Approaches to Violence and Abuse
Optional modules currently available in Anthropology:
Evolutionary Variation and Adaptation / Global Health and Disease / Kinship and Religion / Our Place in Nature / Politics and Economics / Sex, Reproduction and Love
**Year 3**
You take a 40-credit Dissertation in Anthropology or a 40-credit Dissertation in Sociology in view of previous training in social research. Additionally, students currently take up to 60 credits of modules in each Department.
Optional modules in Anthropology:
Specialised Aspects in Evolutionary Anthropology (20 or 40 credits)
Specialised Aspects in Health and Medical Anthropology (20 or 40 credits)
Specialised Aspects in Social Anthropology (20 or 40 credits)
Example modules in Sociology:
Community Placement / Cybercrime: Crime in the Information Age / Drugs, Crime and Society / Issues in Criminal Justice / Social Policy / Sociology of Forensic Science and Criminal Investigation / Sociology of Health and Medicine / Sociology of Work and Professions / Young People, Crime and Justice
**Study Abroad**
Anthropology: Study abroad or placement activities undertaken as part of a degree are not only enjoyable but can give a significant edge when it comes to employability. ERASMUS exchanges are possible on our degrees, and we currently have links with the University of West Bohemia (Czech Republic), the University of Iceland, the University of Ljubljana (Slovenia) and the University of Malta, with new opportunities being added every year. We also run a third-year Field Course module, involving fieldwork at our South African field site.
Sociology and Criminology: We are part of the ERASMUS programme which encourages students to study for part of their course in a university of another EU country.
We currently have links with the universities of Helsinki in Finland and Duisburg-Essen in Germany. Students can also apply to the university-wide international exchange programme with universities in North America, Asia, Australia and New Zealand.
For more information on this course, please see our website.
Modules
Year 1
In the first year, you take a selection of modules from across the two departments (i.e. Anthropology and Sociology):
Compulsory theory modules:
People and Cultures
and/or
Classical Sociological Theory.
Compulsory research modules:
Doing Anthropological Research
or
Social Research Methods.
Optional modules:
Being Human
Critical Scholarship in the Social Sciences
Health, Illness and Society
Human Evolution and Diversity
Introduction to Criminological Theory
Societies in Transition (double module)
Year 2
Students currently select a mixture of modules from both Anthropology and Sociology, either split evenly or weighted towards one or the other disciplines, including compulsory research training in either Anthropology or Sociology as preparation for the final year dissertation module.
Compulsory research modules:
Research Methods in Action (double module)
or
Anthropological Field Course
Research Project Design.
Optional modules currently available in Sociology:
Communities and Social Justice
Contemporary Criminological Theory
Modern and Contemporary Sociological Theory
Police and Policing
Self, Identity and Society
Sociology of Education
Sociological Approaches to Violence and Abuse.
Optional modules currently available in Anthropology:
Evolutionary Variation and Adaptation
Global Health and Disease
Kinship and Religion
Our Place in Nature
Politics and Economics
Sex, Reproduction and Love
Reading Ethnography
Biology, Culture and Society.
Year 3
You take a 40-credit Dissertation in Anthropology or a 40-credit Dissertation in Sociology in view of previous training in social research. Additionally, students currently take up to 60 credits of modules in each Department.
Optional modules in Anthropology:
Specialised Aspects in Evolutionary Anthropology
Specialised Aspects in Health and Medical Anthropology
Specialised Aspects in Social Anthropology.
Example modules in Sociology:
Community Placement
Cybercrime: Crime in the Information Age
Drugs, Crime and Society
Issues in Criminal Justice
Social Policy
Sociology of Forensic Science and Criminal Investigation
Sociology of Health and Medicine
Sociology of Work and Professions
Young People, Crime and Justice.
Please note that the list of optional modules available in any year will vary depending on available teaching staff. The lists above provide an example of the type of modules which may be offered.
Tuition fees
Select where you currently live to see what you'll pay:
The Uni
St Cuthbert's Society
Stephenson College
St Chad's College
Trevelyan College
Josephine Butler College
St Aidan's College
College of St Hild and St Bede
Grey College
John Snow College
St John's College
University College
Hatfield College
Van Mildert College
No college preference
South College
St Mary's College
Collingwood College
Anthropology
What students say
We've crunched the numbers to see if overall student satisfaction here is high, medium or low compared to students studying this subject(s) at other universities.
How do students rate their degree experience?
The stats below relate to the general subject area/s at this university, not this specific course. We show this where there isn’t enough data about the course, or where this is the most detailed info available to us.
Sociology
Teaching and learning
Assessment and feedback
Resources and organisation
Student voice
Who studies this subject and how do they get on?
Most popular A-Levels studied (and grade achieved)
Anthropology
Teaching and learning
Assessment and feedback
Resources and organisation
Student voice
Who studies this subject and how do they get on?
Most popular A-Levels studied (and grade achieved)
After graduation
The stats in this section relate to the general subject area/s at this university – not this specific course. We show this where there isn't enough data about the course, or where this is the most detailed info available to us.
Sociology
What are graduates doing after six months?
This is what graduates told us they were doing (and earning), shortly after completing their course. We've crunched the numbers to show you if these immediate prospects are high, medium or low, compared to those studying this subject/s at other universities.
Top job areas of graduates
We have quite a lot of sociology graduates, although numbers fell last year. But graduates still do pretty well. Most sociology graduates go straight into work when they complete their degrees, and a lot of graduates go into jobs in social professions such as recruitment, education, community and youth work, and housing. An important option for a sociology graduate is social work - and we're short of people willing to take this challenging but rewarding career. Sociology is a flexible degree and you can find graduates from the subject in pretty much every reasonable job — obviously, you don't find many doctors or engineers, but you do find them in finance, the media, healthcare, marketing and even IT. Sociology graduates taking further study often branch out into other qualifications, like teaching, law, psychology, HR and even maths, so don’t think a sociology degree restricts you to just one set of options.
Anthropology
What are graduates doing after six months?
This is what graduates told us they were doing (and earning), shortly after completing their course. We've crunched the numbers to show you if these immediate prospects are high, medium or low, compared to those studying this subject/s at other universities.
Top job areas of graduates
This is a pretty flexible degree and a good one if you want to keep your options open. Just over 1,250 graduates completed anthropology degrees last year, and they were well spread out across a whole range of jobs — many industries have jobs that can be done by anthropology graduates and unlike a lot of degrees, there aren't many jobs we can point to and say ‘graduates from this degree do that job’. Management, marketing, housing and recruitment jobs are the most popular, though, and many graduates go into the education or social care sectors. Graduates are also rather more likely than average to work in London, or to go overseas to work. This is quite a popular subject at postgraduate level, and if you want to go into research, you'll need to think about postgrad study - and it's one of the few where numbers are on the up at the moment.
What about your long term prospects?
Looking further ahead, below is a rough guide for what graduates went on to earn.
Sociology, social policy and anthropology
The graph shows median earnings of graduates who achieved a degree in this subject area one, three and five years after graduating from here.
£20k
£27k
£30k
Note: this data only looks at employees (and not those who are self-employed or also studying) and covers a broad sample of graduates and the various paths they've taken, which might not always be a direct result of their degree.
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Post-six month graduation stats:
This is from the Destinations of Leavers from Higher Education Survey, based on responses from graduates who studied the same subject area here.
It offers a snapshot of what grads went on to do six months later, what they were earning on average, and whether they felt their degree helped them obtain a 'graduate role'. We calculate a mean rating to indicate if this is high, medium or low compared to other universities.
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Graduate field commentary:
The Higher Education Careers Services Unit have provided some further context for all graduates in this subject area, including details that numbers alone might not show
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The Longitudinal Educational Outcomes dataset combines HRMC earnings data with student records from the Higher Education Statistics Agency.
While there are lots of factors at play when it comes to your future earnings, use this as a rough timeline of what graduates in this subject area were earning on average one, three and five years later. Can you see a steady increase in salary, or did grads need some experience under their belt before seeing a nice bump up in their pay packet?
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