Sociology with Criminology BSc Honours

The modules studied in year one are designed to give you a grounding in sociology – as social science, providing essential knowledge and skills, and introducing key areas of study that you will explore throughout your degree.  

This module introduces the foundations of sociological theory to allow you to appreciate central questions and ideas that have shaped sociology’s development as a discipline, and to recognise the ways these continue to shape sociologists’ engagement with today’s social world, both in academic contexts as well as in practical settings. The module content serves as foundational knowledge for other sociology and criminology modules. It introduces you to taking a sociological perspective on human interaction and to using the sociological imagination to analyse a range of social issues as well as how actors and institutions might respond to these issues in a sociologically informed way. You will learn core approaches to understanding contemporary society, by studying social structures, interactions, institutions, social movements and activism from a global and intersectional lens. They will also learn core aspects of the relation between theory and practice in contemporary sociology and its applications.

This module introduces you to key criminal justice institutions, exploring contemporary issues within the police, courts, prisons, probation, immigration detention, youth justice, and the forensic mental health system. This module familiarises you with the understanding of current policies and practice, emphasizing international and cross-national influences on criminal justice.

Additionally, the module introduces the UK legal system, fostering an awareness of its role in shaping criminal justice responses to crime, deviance, and public insecurity. You will engage with legal frameworks, procedural rules, and explore various punishment measures, while developing skills in synthesizing official statistics and evaluating research data.

In this module, you will become acquainted with the dynamic nature of crime across law, politics, society, and culture. The module challenges conventional perceptions of crime, exploring its contested essence over time and space. Emphasis is placed on understanding the impact of social factors on crime constructions including issues of class, race, ethnicity, gender, sexuality, and religion.

This module facilitates an exploration of the intricate relationship between crime, culture and society and the seeming paradox between society’s fear of crime and fascination with violent crime. You will gain a comprehensive understanding of contemporary criminology’s major theoretical approaches this foundation is crucial in building knowledge and understanding of diverse perspectives on crime thereby helping to form a cornerstone for further studies. The module also facilitates the development of key academic skills including the synthesis and interpretation of information and research data, the construction of oral and written assignments and citation and referencing.

This module introduces you to social research inquiry as a way of seeing and interpreting the world. The module focuses on how ethical qualitative and quantitative social research is carried out. It will teach you the basic components of social sciences research. The lens of communities will be used to highlight the context in which the events, issues and problems we study, occur within.

You will be engaging with a range of qualitative and quantitative research methods. You will learn how data are produced in different forms and will develop ways to analyse them. The module builds key research capabilities through a range of skills-based tasks and adopts a developmental style through a research portfolio assessment. You will be able to apply knowledge through practical activities. Many of these skills will have relevance beyond your degree and will be attractive to future employers.

In the second year, you will study three compulsory modules. This includes a semester-long research methods module which has been jointly developed by the Sociology and Criminology teaching teams to provide you with the skills needed for successful completion of your dissertation (in year 3) and to provide you with skills which will be useful in your everyday life and in the workplace. You will also undertake one optional module (30 credits) in the second semester of your second year.  

At the end of your second year, you may opt to take a year-long placement module before returning to complete your final year of study. This will make your degree a four-year period of study if studied full-time. 

The module will help you develop an understanding of key theoretical perspectives on race and social justice in relation to lived realities, in the UK and globally. The module will equip you with in-depth understanding of the concept of race and its social construction, power and privilege, including white power and privilege across different spaces, racism and intersectional oppression. The module will also focus on institutional racism and resistance, on the power of the state and legislation, providing a critical reflection through interdisciplinary scholarship.

This module prepares you to engage with race and social justice topics for their dissertations and/or those wanting to pursue a career in a related field. With guest lectures from practitioners and a range of creative and academic assessments, the module encourages co-leadership, practice-led learning, digital literacy and technology-enhanced learning and employability.

This research-informed module will provide you with an interdisciplinary understanding of globalization, covering its key components, dynamics, and consequences for societies globally.  Through active participation, you will explore how globalization shapes the global landscape, focusing on the diverse experiences of societies across the globe. Utilizing interactive methods and case studies, you will employ key concepts and theories to analyse the key drivers and dimensions of globalization, from technological advancements and economic “integration” to cultural exchange, while also exploring its implications such as climate change, conflict, poverty, (gendered) inequality, and geographical disparities. Moreover, it will explore how class, race, gender, ethnicity and other social identities intersect to shape inequality experiences in a globalized context. 

The aim of this module is threefold:

(A) You will propose a methodological research project on a topic of interest, including a review of the literature and research questions suitable for; 

(B) A mixed method project; and 

(C) part of the project involves forming a conversational guide and a survey, collecting and analysing data, to form a portfolio. This module equips you with the knowledge and skills to use SPSS for data analysis and thematic analysis to analyse qualitative data. By studying this module you will be prepared to undertake qualitative and quantitative research for their dissertation.

The module will expand your thinking around victimisation and consider this topic from a broader perspective, assessing societal responses to victimisation and who we consider to be a victim. The module will explore multiple crime types such as: sexual and domestic violence; homicide; sex work; hate crime; financial crime; state crime and other types of crime, comparing and contrasting different theories and perspectives in relation to the concept of victimisation. In addition, the module will develop your reflective learning skills both by reflecting on your own learning and formulating feedback for the work of others.

This module introduces you to intersections between the criminal courts, sentencing, prisons and rehabilitation. It has a particular focus on the aims of punishment, the use of imprisonment and key developments in penal policy and practice. It will facilitate your abilities to apply theoretical perspectives to sentencing, punishment and prison issues and to analyse the impact of policy on the experiences of those who are imprisoned and the work of the key professionals and practitioners working in the prison system. The module will develop your skills in drawing on a range of documentary evidence to analyse and evaluate sentencing aims, the purpose and place of prisons in society and to foster a critical interest in prison and punishment reform.

This module will strengthen, extend and apply the knowledge, skills and experiences you would have gained from your course in the context of a working environment, and to complement, stimulate, reinforce and encourage the development of discipline-specific technical knowledge, and your transferable skills. You will gain knowledge of professional requirements in an industry context and record and critically reflect on your personal practice. 

In the final year, you will undertake either the Ethical Research and Project management module and the Dissertation in the broad area of sociology and criminology, or a 60-credit Learning at work module.  You will complete a core module to further enhance your knowledge on communities, mobility and migration as current prevalent and relevant sociological topics, allowing you to reflect on and link these with your previous study and knowledge on sociological and criminological debates. 

The second semester of your final year of study offers you the opportunity to select one out of four optional modules that will enable you to shape your degree in relation to your academic interests and employment aspirations. Each of the optional modules available to you will complement the knowledge and skills you have already developed during the first two years of study.  

This module will develop your understanding of research project design while equipping you with ethical research skills required to carry out independent social science research projects. These skills include narrowing down to a criminology or sociology topic for research, conducting a literature review to justify proposed research questions, to selecting appropriate research methodologies and methods while considering the ethical issues around the research project. The module prepares you with project design skills and management including taking leadership of your learning and being reflexive of the process.

This module uses the workplace as a site of learning and inquiry. It supports the integration of theory and practice and provides opportunities to apply methods of inquiry to practice related problems in order to recommend solutions and improve work practice. The module also immerses you in a process of reflection, cultivates knowledge of ethical and professional behaviours and builds some of the key understandings associated with the worker-researcher. In sum this module supports the development of a range of skills and knowledge necessary for career and professional development.

This module explores the politics of belonging in relation to immigrant and ethnic minority communities in Europe and globally. It covers a critical overview of state discourses and policy approaches apropos of migration, analyses of migrant mobilities and community building practices, and in-depth examples of how best to research migrant ethnic minority communities given their racialised and gendered dimensions, and complex vulnerabilities. It will look at "invisible", hidden, and criminalised migrant communities in the UK and Europe as well as large, established ethnic minority diasporas. It will provide students with the tools and resources to engage in migration research, from quantitative data analysis to ethnography to interviews. The module will be geared towards students looking to engage in advanced research in this field, or work in a research agency, charity, think tank, policy or political position associated with migrant and ethnic minority community-building.

This module will critically engage you in contemporary debates surrounding drugs, drug use and their control. It will develop your knowledge and understanding of the processes involved in social definitions of drugs, drug use and people who use drugs and your skills in applying theoretical perspectives to drug issues. It will stimulate critical analysis and evaluation of the laws, policies and institutions of drugs control and their social, economic and political contexts. The module will foster and develop your critical interest in the reform of drugs control policy.

The module will advance your critical and creative understanding of the ways in which the use of digital technologies is reshaping fundamental dimensions of social life, from personal relationships and vulnerabilities to transformations in crime and violent extremism. The module allows you to examine how digital communications are embedded in everyday life, linking theoretical approaches, empirical material, and your experiments with digital tools, particularly generative AI.

This module facilitates your critical engagement with the crimes such as white-collar, corporate, environmental and state crime (crimes of the powerful) as well as transnational organised crimes, often committed by both formal and informal powerful organisations. The module provides you with a comprehensive understanding of the causes, consequences of such variety of crime as well as equip them with the ability to identify effective legislations, policies and policing strategies. You will engage and assess the main theories that explain these types of power crime and evaluate policies and judicial response at international and transnational level.

This module will discuss the dynamics of violence from a gender-informed perspective, how it is used by perpetrators, controlled, and used to control. The module highlights the interconnections between violence, gender, sexuality and crime, and illustrates the blurred boundaries between interpersonal, self-inflicted, community and structural violence. On completing the module, you will explore and learn about the social and spatial parameters of violent crime, theoretical and layperson perspectives on violence, the links between sex, sexuality and violence, and how violence is gendered.

You will be studying at our north London campus in Hendon. If you have chosen the four-year course with a placement or the placement module, you will be based at your placement location.

During your first year, your weekly timetable will typically consist of 12 hours of blended learning.

You will study two modules per semester, with an average contact time of five hours per week for year one, and three hours for years two and three.

Outside of teaching hours, you’ll learn independently through self-study which will involve reading articles and books, working on projects, undertaking research, and preparing for assessments including coursework, presentations and exams.

Here is an indication of how you will split your time.

Year 1

Year 2

Year 3

Whether you are studying full or part-time – your course timetable will balance your study commitments on campus with time for work, life commitments and independent study.

We aim to make timetables available to students at least 2 weeks before the start of term. Some weeks are different due to how we schedule classes and arrange on-campus sessions.

Our excellent teaching and support teams will help you develop the skills relevant to your degree from research and practical skills to critical thinking. Our Sheppard Library is open 24 hours a day during term time. And we offer free 24-hour laptop loans with full desktop software, free printing and Wi-Fi to use on or off campus, even over the weekend.

You can also arrange 1-2-1 meeting with your teachers to talk through any issues. Staff and former students are on hand to support you throughout your time with us.

This course is 100% assessed by coursework with two assignments per module.

Your understanding and progress will be tested with informal and formal assessments.

You'll work on a number of assignments, practical exercises, data analysis, and presentations. You will use this to build a portfolio of essays, presentations, and reports, as well as your dissertation/project, group campaign projects, creative podcasts, and video presentations or practical assessments modeled on future employment contexts.

The informal assessments usually take place at least once per module, from which you’ll receive feedback from your tutor. The grades from these don’t count toward your final marks. 

There are formal assessments for each module, usually at the end, which will count towards your module’s final marks. Assessments are reviewed annually and may be updated based on student feedback or feedback from an external examiner. 

You will receive regular feedback on your progress.