Course summary

This is a four-year programme that includes a year of foundational study and leads directly into the degree course. Our foundation year offers the chance to strengthen your skills, knowledge and confidence, before you advance to stage one of your honours degree. Are you passionate about social justice? Do you want to tackle complex social issues? Do you want to gain the skills and insights needed to address the challenges facing the modern world and make a difference? This forward-thinking degree will enable you to understand the complex issues of today through sociological investigation and create solutions to these through your understanding of social policy. Through engaging with sociological concepts, you will develop a critical understanding of the challenges facing our world. Through your learning about social policy, institutions, and meeting people’s needs you will be able to work out where and how change can happen. The Sociology & Social Policy degree at Cardiff Met is structured around three key sociological themes: Individuals, Society and Power; Identity, Difference and Inequality; and Space, Place and Justice. This degree will challenge you to critically analyse the world, the interactions between individuals within it, and the social processes that shape it. Importantly, it will also enable you to build the skills to change it. You will develop core skills around engaging in critical thinking, undertaking research, using evidence effectively, and communicating with different audiences. Employability is a key area throughout the degree, and you will apply your learning in practice through volunteering opportunities, as well as completing industry-relevant work-based learning in year two. This external placement will focus on impact – impact for you in terms of developing your skills, but also impact in addressing a social issue that we have studied. The teaching team have experience of influencing policy and legislative change in England and Wales, driving the social and physical regeneration of communities, and working with individuals to address issues such as homelessness, food poverty, and social exclusion. On completion, you will have a deep, broad based and highly practical understanding of social science concepts and practices, alongside a range of skills and experiences to enable you to pursue a successful career in a variety of sectors, including local and national government, the third sector, policy organisations, research and academia.