Sociology and Politics
Goldsmiths, University of London
UCAS Code: LL23 | Bachelor of Arts (with Honours) - BA (Hons)
Entry requirements
A level
Access to HE Diploma
Pass with 45 Level 3 credits including 30 Distinctions and a number of merits/passes in subject specific modules
International Baccalaureate Diploma Programme
With three Higher Level subjects at 655
Leaving Certificate - Higher Level (Ireland) (first awarded in 2017)
Pearson BTEC Level 3 National Extended Diploma (first teaching from September 2016)
Scottish Advanced Higher
Scottish Higher
UCAS Tariff
We've calculated how many Ucas points you'll need for this course.
About this course
This degree gives you a thorough grounding in sociology and politics, in methods of social and political research, and in interdisciplinary approaches to political analysis.
**Why study BA Sociology & Politics at Goldsmiths?**
- The degree brings together the concerns, theories and methodologies of politics and sociology, so you’ll develop a rich, analytical and informed engagement with a range of contemporary problems while also gaining a number of transferable skills.
- At Goldsmiths, you won't just learn about politics in terms of what happens in the Houses of Parliament and conventional arenas of power, but also what happens on the streets, in art galleries, and in the non-Western world.
- Our academics are responsible for producing cutting-edge research in sociology and politics, so you’ll be learning from the experts.
- Our departments are committed to decolonising the curriculum and we offer particular expertise on questions of culture, as well as on radical approaches to race, gender, sexuality, and the organisation of political life.
- You’ll be able to pursue your own interests and develop your own lines of research, culminating in the final year dissertation on a topic of your choice. Previous dissertations included a study of the impact of stigma on South Asian Muslim experiences of mental health, a feminist critical analysis of the Green Party’s policies and manifesto, and an ethnography of labour practices and workers’ organisation in a Chinese street market.
- We make use of our London location to consider the social and cultural themes and issues in the local area. Several modules make use of walking tours and neighbourhood observations to illuminate your studies.
- You’ll join an active community and be able to get involved in campaigns, debates, activities and societies and meet other people as passionate about the subject as you.
- We have a lively events programme that attracts renowned speakers, meaning that you'll have the opportunity to hear the latest political and sociological arguments, theories and ideas which bring a contemporary perspective to your degree.
Modules
In the first year, you'll take sociology compulsory modules that familiarise you with sociological research methods and with the distinguishing features of the subject. For the politics element, you study key concepts in political theory – including the state, democracy, freedom, rights, power and authority. You also choose from three option modules.
In the second year, you'll look at how to study a society, encompassing issues of agency and structure, class and conflict, political action and social change. The making of the modern world and its sociological context is also considered. Politics modules examine how the subject has become associated with social movements, environmentalism and globalisation, while theoretical debates on the concept of democracy are also studied. You also take a sociology option and a politics option.
In the third year, you'll take a compulsory module in theorising contemporary society and study for a dissertation. You also pick a sociology option and two politics options.
Year 1 (credit level 4) Your first year gets you thinking sociologically and critically, and introduces the ways in which sociological knowledge of societies has been shaped by disputes about theories and methods. Modules address problems that have interested sociologists in their attempts to account for the world we live in. You will start to understand how the meaning derived from sociological investigations operates in cultural processes, and look at the methods that have been developed by sociologists to produce sociological knowledge.
You will take the following compulsory modules – three from the Department of Sociology, and one from the Department of Politics and International Relations.
Modern Knowledge, Modern Power
Researching Society and Culture 1A
Researching Society and Culture 1B
Political Theory and Ideologies
You are then able to choose 30 credits from the following modules.
World Politics
UK and European Comparative Governance and Politics
Colonialism, Power, and Resistance
Introduction to Political Economy
Introduction to Economic Policy
Year 2 (credit level 5) Compulsory modules cover the main approaches to sociological thought, and their implications for understanding contemporary societies. You develop a rich knowledge of the variety of sociological reasoning and research.
Central Issues in Sociological Analysis
The Making of the Modern World
Social Change and Political Action
Modern Political Theory
You will then choose 30 credits of Politics and International Relations modules from the following list.
Making Modern Japan
Chinese Politics: The Revolutionary Era
US Politics and Foreign Policy
Europe Since 1945
Ideologies and Interests: Political Thought in Modern Britain
International Trade
International Monetary Economics
Liberalism and its Critics
Life: A User's Manual
Modern Britain: Politics from 1979 - today
Rough Politics
Political Economy
International Politics of the Middle East
Politics of Vision
The Politics of Popular Music
Armed Politics and Political Violence
Feminist Economics
You will also choose 15 credits from the following list of Sociology modules.
Leisure, Culture and Society
The Body: Social Theory and Social Practice
Social Change and Political Action
Crimes Against Humanity
Migration in Context
Year 3 (credit level 6) supports a strong programme of research in social and political theory, gender studies, and cultural studies of politics and government.
You will take the following compulsory modules.
Confronting the climate crisis
Dissertation
You will then choose 15 credits Sociology options, and 60 credits of Politics and International Relations options.
Please note that due to staff research commitments not all of these modules may be available every year.
Assessment methods
You’ll be assessed by a variety of methods, depending on your module choices. These include coursework, examinations, group work and projects.
The Uni
Goldsmiths, University of London
Sociology
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)
Politics
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.
Politics
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
The numbers of people taking politics degrees fell sharply last year and we'll keep an eye on this one - it can't really be because of graduates getting poor outcomes as politics grads do about as well as graduates on average. Most politics or international relations graduates don't actually go into politics - although many do, as activists, fundraisers and researchers. Jobs in local and central government are also important. Other popular jobs include marketing and PR, youth and community work, finance roles, HR and academic research (you usually need a postgraduate degree to get into research). Because so many graduates get jobs in the civil service, a lot of graduates find themselves in London after graduating. Politics is a very popular postgraduate subject, and so about one in five politics graduates go on to take another course - usually a one-year Masters - after they finish their degrees.
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.
£19k
£23k
£29k
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.
Politics
The graph shows median earnings of graduates who achieved a degree in this subject area one, three and five years after graduating from here.
£21k
£23k
£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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