UDCRISOC - BSc Criminology and Sociology

The BSc Criminology and Sociology course is designed in a way that enables students to obtain subject specific knowledge in the core fields of both respective disciplines, along with developing students’ vital academic and transferable skills.

The various teaching and learning strategies employed across modules, intends to develop students’:

- communications and IT skills relevant to studying social phenomena

- research skills and their ethical awareness

- problem-solving skills

- learning styles and preferences through facilitating inclusivity and variation

- learning in both full-time and part-time mode

Module leaders and tutors will ensure opportunities for students to:

- be actively involved in their own learning

- pose and test criminology/sociology related hypotheses

- work to deadlines and balance conflicting pressures

- use appropriate resources and technology available

- review, evaluate and reflect on their work

- work with others and develop team-working skills

The course is delivered through a range of pedagogic approaches including traditional formal lectures and seminars, workshops, project-based research activity and individual tutorials held during staff office hours. There is strong emphasis upon the link between teaching and research to ensure current research informed teaching. The course also integrates face-to-face with online learning at all levels. All modules use WebLearn to provide key information and learning resources. Advanced use of VLE on the course includes online tests and assessment, discussions, and feedback. The course encourages contact between students and tutors and, in the course of this, encourages active learning. CIT and other media are used to encourage collaboration among students.

To accommodate research leave for academic staff and to ensure that modules are viable in terms of student numbers, the Criminology subject group may withdraw one or more optional modules for a year. To gauge the number of students on optional modules at levels 5 and 6 in the following academic year, module conferences will take place in the spring semester on the core modules SC4058 and SS4058, to ensure that students are informed about their options, are able to select their modules at the next level of study and to enable the subject group to make adjustments for any modules which need to be temporarily withdrawn.

This course aims to provide students with an understanding of the key fields in criminology and sociology. It will develop students’ analytical and critical skills through consideration of the relationship between theory and practice. It aims to make students aware of the conceptual and historical context for current theory and knowledge within criminology and sociology and provide an opportunity for them to choose from a range of different fields in both disciplines respectively. The teaching, learning and assessment strategy is designed to enable students to develop, and demonstrate competency in a wide range of academic and transferable skills within the context of the disciplines which will also be invaluable in future employment or training.

In more detail, the course aims to:

1. offer the skills and knowledge relevant to a range of careers in the area of criminal justice, related fields and/or in social research

2. develop the intellectual skills necessary for the understanding and critical evaluation of a range of theoretical approaches to the study of crime, deviance and other social problems and phenomena

3. develop students’ familiarity with the institutional apparatus which regulated and seeks to control socially defined deviant populations

4. develop students’ analytical skills through consideration of the relationship between self and society and between theory and practice

5. develop students’ competence in qualitative and quantitative research methodologies

6. offer the opportunity to develop the above in relation to specialist areas of interest including the opportunity to undertake an individual piece of research at Honours level.

On successful completion of this course students will be able to:

1. deploy accurately established techniques of analysis and enquiry within Criminology and Sociology;

2. devise and sustain arguments, and/or to solve problems, using ideas and techniques, some of which are at the forefront of Criminology and Sociology;

3. describe and comment upon particular aspects of current research, or equivalent advanced scholarship, in Criminology and Sociology, recognising the uncertainty, ambiguity and limits of knowledge;

4. manage their own learning, and to make use of scholarly reviews and primary sources (for example, refereed research articles and/or original materials appropriate to Criminology and Sociology);

5. apply the methods and techniques that they have learned to review, consolidate, extend and apply their knowledge and understanding, and to initiate and carry out projects;

6. critically evaluate arguments, assumptions, abstract concepts and data (that may be incomplete), to make judgements, and to frame appropriate questions to achieve a solution - or identify a range of solutions - to a problem;

7. communicate information, ideas, problems and solutions to both specialist and non-specialist audiences;

8. exercise initiative and personal responsibility, including decision-making in complex and unpredictable contexts;

9. undertake appropriate further training of a professional or equivalent nature

Criminology, Sociology

http://www.qaa.ac.uk/en/Publications/Documents/SBS-criminology-14.pdf

http://www.qaa.ac.uk/en/Publications/Documents/SBS-Sociology-16.pdf

A variety of teaching and learning methods and assessments are used in line with the principles of an inclusive curriculum and inclusive assessment set out in the ESJ Framework. Assessment practices include a wide range of summative and formative assessments. Formative assessment has been introduced on most modules in order to provide students with early feedback to allow them to improve the quality of their assessed work. Constructive feedback to students is embedded through diverse forms of formative assessment that range from coursework plans and drafts to oral presentations, debates, and podcasts.

Apart from traditional assessment methods such as essays and a test, assessment methods include book reviews, research reports, individual and group presentations, portfolios, blogging and podcasts. Many assessments are designed in such a way to open space for students’ voices. Not only do assessments allow students to choose their own topics, but at every level of their studies, students have an opportunity to choose the form of their assessment. These assessments are designed to strengthen student employability, as well as students’ weaker abilities, such as presentation and discussion in a safe environment.

Overall, the strategy is to promote students' written, oral and research skills within the context of their understanding of criminological and sociological theory and practice. Level 4 assessments seek to encourage students to become familiar with relevant theory, as well as to give them some basic tools for conducting independent research. Level 5 assessments require students to critically evaluate the knowledge and theories they have encountered, and practically demonstrate the ability to conduct small research independently. At Level 6 assessments test the students’ critical knowledge of applied areas of criminology and sociology and their ability to be independent researchers.

There is a final year optional work experience module providing students with the option to gain relevant work experience.

There may be opportunities for students to study for part of their degree in another country.

Part-time Structure

LEVEL 4

Year 1

AUTUMN SEMESTER
SC4054 Traditional Criminological Theories and Concepts
SC4055 The Criminal Justice Framework

SPRING SEMESTER
SC4058 The Development of Criminological Thought
SS4056 Sociological Imagination

YEAR 2

AUTUMN SEMESTER
SC4057 Becoming a Criminologist
SS4057 Social Division

SPRING SEMESTER
SS4058 Global Inequalities
SS4053 Introducing Social Policy

LEVEL 5

YEAR 1

AUTUMN SEMESTER
SS5066 Self and Society (core)
SS5098 Youth in Modern Society, Consumerism, Deviants and Rebels (core)

SPRING SEMESTER
SC5066 Criminological Research in Practice (core)
SS5097 Understanding Racism and Ethnicity (core)

YEAR 2

AUTUMN SEMESTER
SC5064 Criminological Research in Context (core)

And 1 option

SC5059 Crimes of the Powerful (option)

SS5153 Sociology of Current Affairs

SC5056 Working with Offenders (option)
SC5065 Dark Destinations - Crime and Tourism (option)

SPRING SEMESTER
SC5063 Cybercrime and Surveillance (core)

And one option:

SS5150 Understanding Gender and Sexuality (option)

WW5151 Living on the Margins (option)
SS5084 Researching Diversities & Inequalities (option)
SC5062 Becoming a Criminal Justice Professional (option)

LEVEL 6

YEAR 1

AUTUMN SEMESTER
SS6057 Religion and the State (core)
SS6057 Homelessness and Housing Policy (core)

SPRING SEMESTER
SS6054 Human Rights and Conflict (core)
SC6060 Migration, Borders and Control (core)

YEAR 2

AUTUMN SEMESTER
SC6P00 Criminology Project (core)

One option:
SC6055 Organised crime (option)
SS6089 Gender Politics (option)
SC6051 Serious and Serial Offenders (option)
SC6054 Punishment and Prison (option)

SPRING SEMESTER
SC6P00 Criminology Project (core)

One option:
SC6052 Terrorism and Counter Terrorism (option)
SS6088 Racism in the Global context (option)
SS6082 Comparative and Global Social Policy (option)
SC6062 The deviant other- media representations of crime (option)
SC6W52 Criminology Work-Based Learning (option)

In the first year students begin processes of personal development planning in core modules and start to build up a record of achievements. They are encouraged to reflect in workshop contexts and individually on specifically what they have learned from modules and the ways in which this knowledge may be used in, or applied to, the wider social world. Specific modules focused on social research methodologies provide a forum in which students reflect upon their practice as social researchers, its ethical dimensions and the ways in which this practice may be applied to solving problems in the context of volunteering activity and/or employment. Self-directed project research at level 6 provides an opportunity for students to consolidate this reflection, bringing together particular substantive areas of interest with methodological issues and considering how this might provide a basis for their further self-development and contribution to the wider social world in the future. Finally, certain optional modules in level 5 and 6 will enhance students’ understanding of working in the Criminal Justice System.

Past students of these areas have gone on to take up careers in the police, and other areas of the criminal justice system and victim, prisoner and witness support agencies, as well as entering the teaching profession and areas of local government. The programme is also excellent preparation for further research or study. The analytical and methodological skills gained on successful completion of the course provide a strong grounding for development within many different careers. The course includes a focus on developing these key employability skills throughout the three years of students study.

Our criminology and sociology graduates have gone on to careers including police officers, counter fraud criminal investigators, support workers, probation officers and teachers, securing jobs at the Metropolitan Police Service, HM Government, Rethink Mental Illness and the National Probation Service.

Continuing your studies with us

The School of Social Sciences and Professions has a wide range of exciting industry-linked postgraduate courses available on a full-time and part-time basis in criminology, security, diplomacy, international relations, sociology and psychology. The following courses would be ideal for progression after this course:

• Human Rights and International Conflict - MA
• Organised Crime and Global Security - MA
• Woman and Child Abuse - MA

In addition to the University's standard entry requirements, you should have:

• a minimum of grades BBC in three A levels (or a minimum of 112 UCAS points from an equivalent Level 3 qualification, eg BTEC National or Advanced Diploma)
• GCSE English at grade C/ grade 4 or above (or equivalent)

If you don’t have traditional qualifications or can’t meet the entry requirements for this undergraduate degree, you may still be able to gain entry by completing our Criminology (including foundation year) BSc (Hons) degree.