Public Sociology
Entry requirements
A level
English required and Maths preferred GCSE grade C or 4.
Various Access courses considered, such as: Access to Community, Education & Humanities Access to University Study Access to Arts, Social Sciences & Primary Teaching Access to Languages, Arts and Social Sciences Access to Humanities/Primary Education Access to Degree Studies Access to Arts & Social Science Access to Humanities Access to Social Sciences Access to Teaching
International Baccalaureate Diploma Programme
English required and Maths preferred at Standard level
Leaving Certificate - Higher Level (Ireland) (first awarded in 2017)
English required and Maths preferred at Ordinary level grade O4 or Higher level grade H5
Pearson BTEC Level 3 National Extended Diploma (first teaching from September 2016)
In Social Sciences subjects.
Scottish HNC
HNC Social Science HNC Social Services HNC Counselling HNC in Child Care (Early Education and Child Care) Pass at grade C required in the graded unit.
Scottish HND
HND Social Services with CB in the graded units or similar.
Scottish Higher
English required and Maths preferred at National 5 grade C or above.
UCAS Tariff
We've calculated how many Ucas points you'll need for this course.
About this course
You will embrace new ideas and schools of thought on this intellectually stimulating and personally empowering BSc/BSc (Hons) Public Sociology course. It encourages rigorous critical thinking on complex and challenging social issues, opening the door to a wide range of careers.
Why QMU?
- This was the first undergraduate public sociology degree in Scotland.
- Many of our staff are actively involved in social justice, and so you will see first-hand how we can bring what we study to life.
- We offer a stimulating environment in which students can develop the intellectual and professional edge needed for working with 21st century society, and in which our staff work on outward-facing, innovative and cross-disciplinary research.
- Our course is student-focused and research-informed. It offers students the opportunity to work closely with staff on current, real-world projects and collaborations.
- Our class sizes are smaller compared with some universities, so you have closer and more personal support and guidance from our staff.
- We came top amongst UK universities for 'overall student satisfaction in social sciences' in the National Student Survey 2021.
On this course you will:
- Engage with diverse communities and develop a sense of the ways in which a public sociological imagination can meaningfully intervene in real-world political and social events.
- Ask, and be able to answer, critical questions such as 'What is the nature of society and how can we change it for the better? What are the root causes of social injustice and inequality? How could we change society’s perception of them, and make the actual changes themselves?
- Reflect upon the ways in which sociological knowledge can affect real change in people’s everyday lives.
- Learn how to critique preconceptions about social equality and justice.
- Learn how to make sense of complex and challenging social issues, and how to provoke change.
- Understand how the public sociologist and sociological knowledge can create radical approaches to solving social problems.
If you have an enquiring, questioning mind and you want to understand more about human societies, social problems, interactions and experiences, you will thrive on this course. It is Scotland’s first public sociology course and we continue to be pioneering in the way we think. Our students have chosen fascinating and original topics to research for their dissertations, from women’s body image on social media to a community campaign on gentrification.
Modules
Year One
•Introduction to Academia and the Sociological Imagination
•Foundations of Psychology
•Introduction to Psychology
•Diversity, Identity and Wellbeing
•Methods of Investigation
Year Two
•Social Inquiry – Philosophy and Design
•Social and Developmental Psychology
•Psychological Literacy
•Production and Consumption of Culture
•Engaged Sociology
Year Three
•Current Debates in Sociology
•Sociology of Liberation
•Interaction and Social Order
•Poverty and Social Exclusion
•Social Research – Theory and Practice
•Changing World: Social Movement and Global Change
Year Four
•Dissertation
•European Social Policy and Politics
•Options may include: Gender Justice and Violence: Feminist Approaches/ Queer Theory, Gender and Sexual Politics; Sociology of Scotland/ Public Sociology Education
The modules listed here are correct at time of posting (Feb 2022) but may differ slightly to those offered in 2023. Please check back here for any updates.
Assessment methods
You will be taught in lectures, seminars and practical workshops. Outside these timetabled sessions you will be expected to continue learning through self-study. You will be assessed by essays and a variety of other ways including written reports, presentations and groupwork.
Tuition fees
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The Uni
Queen Margaret University
School of Arts, Social Sciences and Management
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)
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.
What about your long term prospects?
Looking further ahead, below is a rough guide for what graduates went on to earn.
Sociology
The graph shows median earnings of graduates who achieved a degree in this subject area one, three and five years after graduating from here.
£16k
£18k
£26k
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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Graduate field commentary:
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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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