Course summary

The Joint Honours Sociology and Criminology programme will give you an exciting opportunity to explore two distinct disciplines which will provide insights into the nature of social deviance. Sociology offers a core social science perspective which can both enhance and draw on insights from criminology whilst criminology is the study of ‘crime’ and its causes, and it will provide ways to understand social responses to crime. Students joining the Sociology and Criminology BA programme have an exciting opportunity to develop not just an understanding of both fields of study in their own right, but also, perhaps more crucially, an understanding of the relationships and conflicts generated by these respective fields. On the Sociology and Criminology BA, you will gain an understanding theoretical approaches in both fields, and will learn to find how patterns emerge across these topics socially, and how deviance, control and social harms are represented and responded to via policymaking, mass social media, and public opinion. You will also gain an understanding of the basic principles of social research, looking into the strengths, weaknesses and uses of specific sources of data and research methods.