Sociology BA (Hons)

This module provides a critical introduction to the criminal justice system. With SOCI107, it provides an essential foundation for your studies in criminology at Liverpool. Key criminal justice concepts, institutions- including the police, the courts, prisons – and processes are introduced and their roles and functions are subject to critical appraisal.

This module introduces you to the subject matter of sociological criminology. It provides an essential foundation for your studies in criminology at Liverpool. You will acquire an understanding of key issues and debates in the sociology of ‘crime’ and subject contemporary talk about ‘the crime problem’ to critical analysis.

This module examines continuity and change in social, cultural, political and economic life in Britain over the twentieth and into the twenty-first century, particularly in the period after 1945. The module will examine areas of British life like politics, the economy, the family, social and cultural relations, and the role of social policy in responding to and encouraging wider forms of change.

This module examines some of the main social changes that have taken place in British society since 1945. It draws upon sociological studies to discuss the inter-relationship between ‘race’, ethnicity, class and gender to understand the influence of these on society.

‘Studying Society’ is designed to provide students with a comprehensive introduction to the field of social enquiry. What is ‘the social’? Why would we study it? What would that involve? These are questions with which this module is concerned. It offers an introduction to the proper objects of social enquiry, relevant modes of thinking and questioning, strategies for finding, accessing, and evaluating sources of information, methods and techniques for generating and analysing data, as well as skills in communicating information and ideas effectively. In doing so, the module aims to equip students with a range of skills for the study of society at degree level and beyond. The module provides students with opportunities to both study and practice these skills.

This module provides a comprehensive introduction to classical and contemporary sociological theory. Tracing sociological analysis from its origins in the nineteenth century through to major present-day thinkers, the module addresses some of the discipline’s landmark studies and theories, in the process equipping you with understanding of the major frameworks for thinking sociologically.

This module examines how quantitative data can be used to investigate the social world. It considers how such data is gathered, the increasing prevalence of ‘statistics’ in making claims about the nature of social reality, how to go about assessing the accuracy of these claims, and how to practically analyse quantitative data to gain a better understanding of society.

This module is designed to provide students with an introduction to the theory and practice of social research using qualitative methods. The module covers qualitative research principles and design, ethics and reflexivity, data generation, data analysis, and presentation of findings. The module encourages students to develop both a critical understanding of and practical competencies in qualitative social research.

This year long core module provides students with a comprehensive overview of major developments in contemporary social theory, using the themes of structure/agency; culture; gender and knowledge as anchors. The module analyses theoretically informed and empirically grounded sociological theories and approaches and encourages students to apply key frameworks and perspectives to major contemporary social issues. In the course of the module students will be invited to cogitate on the ways in which prominent thinkers have conceptualised underlying social processes and transformations in the contemporary era. The methodological focus will centre on the deployment of diverse methods and competing epistemologies and ontologies. The overall aim of the module is to provide students with a robust understanding of how sociological theorists have interpreted fundamental social and cultural changes and enabled us to understand and scrutinise the modern world.

SOCI 252 is a module that introduces students to the core sociological understandings of deviance in both a domestic and international context. The module is designed to provide a critical insight into the concept of deviance, connecting significant past and present issues in the construction of deviants with sociological analyses and broader social, legal and cultural changes.

This module is concerned with studying the origins and development of the concept of Social Exclusion. Students will explore and evaluate its theory and practice and will consider a number of case studies around class, ‘race’ and ethnicity, disability, sexual orientation and gender. You will evaluate policy responses and social action to counter social exclusion; discuss the relationship between exclusion and other forms of social stratification and consider a number of theoretical perspectives that utilise inclusion/exclusion concepts.

This module introduces students to the recent history (circa last 250 years) of black migration and settlement to the UK. It will look at the importance of historical change on contemporary understandings of ‘race’ and ethnic diversity. Through examining the slave trade, colonialism and post-war migration, students will gain a sense of the resilience of such communities to different forms of racism and discrimination. In addition, the module assesses the neglected contribution that black communities have made to British society.

This module identifies and explores a range of empirical sites and critical theoretical perspectives in the study of education. It examines contemporary issues in education, in a cross disciplinary way, through different sociological, social policy and criminological lenses. In particular, the module considers the relationships between education, society, the state and the individual, and considers how forces like globalisation and marketization are impacting education. It pays close attention to educational (in)equalities relating to ‘race’ and ethnicity, social class, gender, sex and sexuality, dis/ability, and migration. Over the course of the module there is a focus on key debates and bodies of research in critical studies of education that can help us to better understand and respond to pressing educational issues.

Based on Esping-Andersen’s classic analysis of the ‘three worlds of welfare capitalism’, this module provides a framework for comparing welfare states, i.e. ‘the mixed economy of welfare’ in different ‘welfare regimes’: including the ‘liberal’ regime in America, the ‘conservative’ regime in Germany and the ‘social democratic’ regime in Sweden. It examines the ways in which these different regimes emerged historically, how they organise and deliver welfare, the social, political and economic priorities they embody, the outcomes they have for different social groups, including their role in the production of inequalities, and their prospects for the future.

This module investigates the intersections of society and climate. Global heating, rising seas, prolonged droughts, dry riverbeds, wars over scarce resources or using scarce resources as leverage, and mass extinction of plants and animal species is already affecting human society. In one of few predictions social scientists can make with high consensus and confidence: the profundity of these effects will increase with time. Sharply reduced water supply, mass migration of humans and animals, and flooding of major cities will change the social world as we know it. What are the mechanisms of these changes? How do they interact with one another? What can be done to minimize the harms? Which sociological and criminological tools help understand this new world? And which perspectives on society does this crisis force us to re-examine? These are some of the important questions we will address in this module. Successful students in this module will be able to articulate the basic material mechanisms of climate change and to propose and adjudicate intervening social mechanisms; that is, they will be able to apply ideas from sociological or criminological thinking to discuss how climate change affects society and how societies might mitigate its effects.

Running across two semesters, the dissertation is a major part of the final year of study and completes their "apprenticeship" in social science. It allows students to revisit, consolidate and apply what they have learnt in the course of their degree studies by focusing in on an independent research project of their own choosing and which they must systematically complete and present as an original social science dissertation. 

The module gives you the opportunity to engage in either an applied social research project or a distinct work project in collaboration with a local Voluntary Community Organisation (VCO).This is organised through the charity ‘Interchange’, based in the SLSJ.

This module offers an alternative approach to the traditional dissertation also offered to third year students and to the Interchange modules.

Students will be given the opportunity to work cross-faculty with engineering students on MECH327.

It will draw upon on the same skills and will test the same outcomes: subject knowledge in sociology, social policy, or criminology or interdisciplinarity as relevant to the chosen topic; desk top research skills; analytic skills and awareness of the limitations of knowledge; and presentation of findings.

Students will be guided through the research process by a supervisor who will have nominated a topic to investigate prior to each academic year (related to supervisors’ areas of specialism). This module will assist students who are unsure of a research topic themselves but wish to develop key transferable skills for employability purposes and provides the opportunity to work closely with an academic expert and fellow students working on similar topics.

The assessment is based on a portfolio comprising different elements. Students will be expected to evidence collaborative working in sharing resources, giving and receiving feedback, and critically reflecting on their delivery and/or preparations for delivery.

The module is an ‘alternative dissertation’ in that it requires group discussion, presentation of findings through a visual or other creative medium and will culminate in a portfolio of 8,000-10,000 words inclusive of appendices.

​The module gives you the opportunity to engage in an in-depth investigation of benefiit to a local Voluntary Community Organsiation (VCO). This module may involve use of anonymised secondary data analysis, or literature review , or policy analysis, and does not involve the collection of new data. The enegagment with the VCO is organised through the charity Interchange, based in the SLSJ.

The aims of this module are to develop a broad range of sociological understandings of issues relevant to health, illness and the life course. This will involve critically examining new developments in theoretical and methodological approaches as well as a variety of empirical studies on the social and cultural aspects of health, illness and the lifecourse.

This module explores issues concerning the gendered nature of work related to deviance. It considers arguments concerning women’s relation to deviance, explores the links between masculinities and crime, studies the experiences of female offenders and explores experiences of women as victims of crime. Teaching is based on current research and practice in this key area of policy.

This module will examine various forms of hate crime that are directed toward groups of people who are often imagined and depicted as ‘stigmatised Others’. This will include an examination of: racism, Islamophobia, AntiSemitism, xenophobia, disablism, misogyny, femicide, and queerphobia, homophobia and transphobia. It will also explore various manifestations of hate crime, including slurs, intimidation, bullying, discrimination, violence, and persecution, in both the online and offline worlds. This module will draw upon academic research about hate crime to consider the similarities and differences that exist between different types of hate crime. Consideration will also be given to the broader social context of Brexit, the Covid19 pandemic, neoliberal economic precarity, the rise of populism and culture wars. Case studies will be utilised throughout the module to illustrate ‘real-world’ examples of hate crimes that have been directed toward ‘stigmatised Others’ in contemporary society. This module will also discuss the campaigns that exist in relation to hate crime and the support initiatives that are available for victims of hate crime. Finally, this module will assess the role that institutions, laws, and the criminal justice system may play in categorising and addressing hate crime. Students who complete this module will develop an advanced understanding of a range of hate crimes and will also have the opportunity to explore a number of existing and potential strategies for resisting the labelling of minority groups as ‘stigmatised Others’ and for tackling hate crime more generally.

This module examines the place of risk in the modern world. Students will be invited to explore the social impacts of various security risks and to examine the ways in which individuals produce, consume and manage risks in everyday life.

This module seeks to conceptually explore the range of brutalities emerging from corporate accumulation in developing world countries through the lens of neo-colonialism and global inequality. It documents a range of crimes perpetrated against labour, the environment, and various social groups in the course of corporate profiteering in less-developed regions and nations. Various systems of production and extraction are examined including mining, deforestation for palm oil, dam construction, export processing zones and deep-sea fishing. The module deploys an array of critical theoretical perspectives and concepts in uncovering the connections between state power, corporate crime and neo-colonialism.

This module considers the links between the rise of urban forms of living, economic change, and the place of ‘culture’ within society. It asks questions such as why cities are at the heart of cultural development, why culture is seen by some as having a role to play in dealing with urban social problems, how the nature of cultural expression changes as dominant economic forms change, whether cultural and economic values are really opposed, what the role of culture is in a ‘new economy’, and how governments seek to intervene in this area.

​ The course investigates the different ways in which gender is incorporated into national welfare states and the impact of national structures on the patterns and prevalence’s of gender inequalities. The course covers the theory and methodology of comparative studies and their applicability to the analysis of gender, especially how well existing typologies of welfare states fare when gender is the focus of analysis. A number of key patterns of inequality and policy areas will be studied and we will look at the political economy of neoliberalisation and austerity and its effect on gendered welfare state provision. By looking at these aspects of welfare states students will been encouraged to contrast approaches of different welfare systems and consider the particularism of national approaches.

This module focuses on social class. It takes ‘class’ as a conceptual term and unpacks its meaning, and material reality in society. Students are introduced to a range of classical and contemporary class theory, where they will critically consider historical debates in class-based analysis, and how these are connected to wider changes in political, economic, social, and cultural realms. Students will also analyse class manifestations in a range of sites such as, education, (social) media, sport and leisure, fashion, work, and, health.

This module seeks to enable students to develop a deeper critical understanding of societal issues concerning illegal drugs and crime, and to appraise how policy and practice have developed to try to alleviate them. Students will look at how issues of drug use, supply and associated criminal behaviour are socially constructed. Through these understandings, students will develop their own knowledge as to how policy responses to such ‘problems’ are interpreted and translated into practice. Students will be encouraged to consider how some people’s drug use is disproportionately framed as problematic, with reference to age, gender and class, as well as consider the spatial distribution of drug-related crime, violence, harm and links to wider social-structural processes. Due attention will be given to a range of criminological and multi-disciplinary perspectives in this module.

Culture, or the ‘symbolic environment’ in and through which individuals and groups make sense of their being, their actions, and the social and material world, shapes our understandings of crime and its control. Definitions and meanings of crime and transgression are constantly negotiated, and contested, in everyday life, global politics and media. In this module, students will engage with the interdisciplinary theoretical and methodological approaches of a cultural criminology. Students will explore how transgression and control are intertwined with various cultural phenomena and processes of meaning-making in order to develop an understanding of crime as a culturally mediated concept. Module topics include digital cultures and new technologies, media representation of crime in a multi-mediated age, crime and consumer culture, crime in contemporary popular culture contemporary ‘culture wars’ and cultural and political resistance.

This module looks at the impact of colonialism on patterns of migration to Britain in the post war period. It examines the changing nature of racism as an ideology by exploring and contextualising scientific and institutional forms of racisms. You will look at the conflictual relationship between the state and minority ethnic communities through an examination of various struggles including anti-immigration ones. The module will also seek to unpack constructions of ethnic and national identity in the context of post-colonial Britain

This module aims to critically explore the concept of the ‘sex industry’ and will examine policy, policing of sex work, stigma, and the global sex worker rights movement.

Love, Hate & Anger: Emotions and Society module is to introduce students to sociological theories, conceptual understandings, and empirical phenomena related to emotions in society.

Students will be introduced to a range of theories and empirical research in the sociology of emotions including Cultural politics of emotions, Emotions in health and illness, Happiness and Anger, Love, Sexual relationship and emotions and embodiment, Loneliness and Alienation and Feeling Race.

Students will develop critical analytical and reflective skills in understanding emotions by using sociological framework while also engaging in interdisciplinary exchanges. Students will analyse how emotions are constructed and played out in our everyday personal lives.

Exponentially growing information and communication technologies have had a profound impact upon the landscape of contemporary criminological scholarship. Whilst having some positive impacts, these technologies have changed the nature of existing crime, created opportunities for new crimes to emerge, and have dramatically altered the scope and experience of victimisation. In this module, students will explore the complexities of crime and victimisation in the face of these new technologies, through investigations into topics such as hacking, image-based sexual abuse, child sexual exploitation and cyberterrorism. Students will be introduced to the core criminological theories within the field of cybercrime scholarship and will engage with empirical examples and case studies, as well as gaining insight into the experiences of victims. Students will also consider the challenges that these technologies pose to policing and criminal justice, as our society rushes to regulate their ongoing proliferation.

Bodies, Politics and Morality will provide a wide-ranging introduction to historical and contemporary understandings of the body and embodiment in society, and their intersection with inequality, resource distribution, and social (in)justice. The course explores how symbolic and material bodies are shaping and shaped by wider socio-historical structures.

Students will also learn to anchor theory in empirical examples, and see how the two have been interwoven in shaping experience, knowledge, and political action. We will draw on historical and contemporary empirical sites of embodied inequality from the UK and global contexts. Although the focus on the module is on the body, students will develop an understanding that bodies can never be divorced from their social contexts.

Students will develop critical, analytical and reflective skills in understanding embodied identity and the distribution of value. They will do so by engaging with texts and reflexively draw on their situated experience.

This module examines how ‘communities’ and members of the general public interact with and are ‘involved’ in crime control and criminal justice institutions. You will explore how the lay public are involved, who is involved and the effects of public involvement in different settings. The module is taught via lectures, seminars and independent study.

This module is based around a comprehensive introduction to social studies of architecture, and focuses on analysis of the architectural spaces of parliaments, prisons, and courts. Introducing sociological frameworks for understanding the relationship between states, architecture and power, the module addresses these three types of political architecture, including as they are put to practical use.

Why are so many men in the UK obsessed with football? Why, when men drink, do they almost exclusively drink beer, or brown spirits? Why are they more violent than women, and more likely to risk their life to impress their mates? It’s tempting to pin this all on testosterone or ‘evolution’, but there are far more complex and nuanced social dynamics at play. Engaging with key sociological concepts and debates, this module examines what it means to ‘be a man’ in contemporary society, how these expectations shape men’s lives and the lives of those around them, and whether they are changing over time. We will explore how masculinities are produced, policed, and contested across a range of contexts including men’s friendships and relationships, and in institutions such as workplaces, the media, and the criminal justice system. Upon successful completion of this module, students will be able to produce nuanced, intersectional analyses that connect masculinities to a range of social issues, including violence, mental ill-health, and substance-related harm, and articulate how these insights should be integrated into social policy.

This module looks at the social, economic and political forces that drive environmental harm. Throughout the semester we will discuss human-wrought destruction through a variety of topics such as biopiracy, space missions, caviar consumption, electric cars and eco-tourism. We will explore how and why environmental harm comes about by looking at key concepts, theories and perspectives put forward by criminologists, sociologists and political ecologists. Peer-learning takes centre stage in this work-intensive module: you will collaborate extensively to develop group assignments, provide feedback to one another, and enrich your understanding of environmental harm through shared insight. Students who successfully complete the module will be able to develop complex analyses that connect global trends to local phenomena in order to explain different forms of environmental harm.

This module will introduce key sociological theories and concepts pertaining to love, relationships, and marriage. Students will explore contemporary partner selection practices, including the use of dating apps, the complexity of union formation, and the changing dynamics of married life.