Sociology and Criminology with a Foundation Year - BSc (Hons) *

This core module introduces you to key classical sociological theories and perspectives, whilst situating them within their historical, social, and political contexts. The module approaches the sociological canon critically, examining how foundational theories emerged within, and were shaped by, processes of modernity, including colonialism, empire, slavery, and gendered exclusions. In doing so, the module challenges narratives that present sociology as an internally European development, instead emphasising the global and relational conditions through which modern social thought was constituted. 

You will engage with canonical thinkers such as Marx, Durkheim and Weber alongside often marginalised or excluded figures including W. E. B. Du Bois, Harriet Martineau and Charlotte Perkins Gilman. These perspectives are explored not as discrete traditions but as interconnected responses to the transformations associated with modernity. The module encourages you to critically interrogate the formation of sociological knowledge, including whose voices are centred, whose are marginalised, and how power operates in the production of theory. 

Through interactive workshops, you will develop the ability to interpret, evaluate and apply sociological concepts to contemporary social issues. The module also supports the development of core academic and transferable skills, including critical reading, structured argumentation, and engagement with different forms of evidence. 

This foundational module introduces the historical development of criminology and its core theoretical perspectives. It examines how different schools of thought have sought to explain crime and deviance, encouraging students to engage with key criminological debates. 

The module is structured around a weekly exploration of major criminological theories, considering their origins, key concepts, and ongoing relevance to contemporary social issues. Through a combination of lectures, seminars, and guided reading, students will develop a strong theoretical grounding, enabling them to analyse and interpret crime within real-world contexts. 

The module explores the origins and evolution of criminology as a discipline and provides sustained engagement with central theoretical traditions. It emphasises the application of theory to contemporary crime and justice issues, while supporting students in developing core academic skills, including critical reading, academic writing, referencing, and presentation. 

Major challenges and issues face UK society, such as climate collapse, the cost of living crisis and violent far right movements. There is also enormous social change in the wake of resistance movements like, #MeToo, and Black Lives Matters. Sociology and Criminology students must be able to relate shifts to changing patterns of offending and criminal justice. 

This module will use a combination of lectures and student-led seminars to help develop your criminological imagination. An assessment of an annotated bibliography will train you to connect major developments in criminology to the social and political context of major historical moments. This is replicated for studying crime and punishment in the 21st century. 

This supports your development of essential employability skills such as an awareness of current affairs, identifying sources of reliable data and research report writing in clear concise English. 

Throughout this module you will be encouraged to apply a ‘sociological imagination’ to ask and to answer sociological questions. 

Overall, the module aims to engage you in developing a capacity to identify and to interpret past and present patterns of social life; and to advance an understanding of the connections between social structure, individual experience and acts of individual and collective agency. Specifically, the module aims to support you in taking forward the task of thinking imaginatively about your own life experiences along sociological lines: a task to be framed and directed with reference to Mill’s focus on ‘Public Issues, Private Troubles’ through the completion of a reflective diary which you prepared for assessment. 

This module provides you with an overview of the Criminal Justice System from point of entry to community reintegration, and the roles and responsibilities of different actors within the system.  

Through studying this module, you will develop an understanding of the evolution and structure of different components of the Criminal Justice System in England and Wales. Emphasis will be placed on understanding the political, social, and economic factors which influence the delivery of justice and the consequences of these for suspects, victims and wider communities. For example, you will explore how constructions of gender, race, class, and other socio-economic circumstances influence the encounters and experiences of those within the Criminal Justice System.  

Building upon this, the module will critically engage with contemporary debates and issues surrounding the ‘purpose’ of the criminal justice system. As such, you will learn to access and interpret statistics on those who encounter the Criminal Justice System, as well as key trends and patterns relating to criminal justice-based responses.  

In terms of employability, you will learn about potential career opportunities within and around the Criminal Justice System and will be encouraged to become actively involved with volunteering opportunities. Practitioners from various agencies within the Criminal Justice System will deliver guest lectures on their experience of working within the field. You will also be given the opportunity to participate in field trips including to Birmingham Crown Court. You will develop transferable employability skills, including communication, statistical analysis and problem-solving. 

This module is assessed by a multiple-choice examination.

This core Level 5 module builds on Sociological Perspectives by engaging you with contemporary social theories whilst also exploring the ways in which they are produced through globally entangled histories of power, knowledge, and resistance. Rather than treating theory as originating within Europe and subsequently applied elsewhere, the module approaches contemporary social theory as emerging through colonial, imperial, and postcolonial formations, as well as through struggles over race, gender, and epistemic authority. In doing so, it foregrounds how what is often presented as the ‘canon’ is historically produced, contested, and incomplete. 

A central aim is to interrogate how social theory is constituted: not only what counts as theory, but who is recognised as a theorist, and under what conditions. You engage with thinkers from different locations within global knowledge production, including those writing from and about colonial and postcolonial contexts, alongside feminist and Black intellectual traditions. Rather than positioning decolonial, feminist, and critical race perspectives as external critiques, the module places them at the centre of analysis, showing how they reshape key concepts such as power, culture, and identity. For example, not only do we examine Gramsci’s theory of hegemony, but we also explore it in relation to colonial domination and subaltern politics; Foucault’s analyses of power are understood alongside feminist and postcolonial interventions; and Bourdieu’s cultural capital is also examined in relation to racialised and gendered inequalities.  

By the end of the module, you will not only have acquired an in-depth understanding of these theories, but also the ability to apply them to the world around them, as well as to the topics and issues raised in other modules.  

Sociology is an exciting and illuminating field of study that attempts to analyse and explain the most important social, cultural and political questions of our time. This module provides you with the opportunity to develop your knowledge and understanding of a range of “problems” or “issues” that currently dominate both the social and political climate. All of these are areas of social and political policy.  

Throughout this module you will be encouraged to develop your skills as an independent learner. You will be given the opportunity to demonstrate your knowledge within an assessment that gets you producing a video campaign. You will use sociological insights to analyse social problems and provide policy suggestions for a range of relevant stakeholders. 

This module introduces you to the sociological understanding of contemporary social and political events and areas in which policy is developed. It aims to provide insight into how these events can be read socially, politically and culturally; and how they can be theorised and analysed using a sociological lens. Because of the topicality of the module its content will be routinely updated contingent on specific current events and issues occurring, globally. Therefore, you will be introduced to cutting-edge understanding of the events and issues that are contemporarily present and around you in your everyday lives. You will firstly be introduced to the particular events and issues, before locating them in the existing literature and debates. Relevant sociological theory will be introduced as to provide you a conceptual base that can be applied to establish new understandings to the events and issues being examined. 

This module develops your ability to critically engage with quantitative data and data-driven knowledge as an informed sociological thinker. Rather than training you as a producer of statistical tests, the module equips you to read, interpret, question, and critique the numbers that shape contemporary social life. 

Alongside this critical engagement, you build practical data literacy: understanding key statistical concepts (e.g. averages, distribution, correlation, significance), reading and interpreting tables and graphs, and gaining introductory experience with relevant software. 

This module provides you with an opportunity to experience/reflect upon real world work and/or work-related activity in relation to one of five pathways. The five pathways are:

1. an external work-experience placement with a third sector/public/commercial organisation
2. directed use made of current and relevant work-experience as an active volunteer or as an active paid employee
3. an agreed BCU internal placement or an agreed student-initiated (desk-based) project supportive of entrepreneurial endeavour
4. a directed set of employment-relevant activities to be informed through a recounting of and reflection upon past employment/volunteering experience along with the complementary use of BCU employment-support resources
5. a variation to or a hybrid combination of the preceding forms (1 to 4) to be agreed between tutor and student with reasonable regard to situation and circumstance and with an option to include a critical account of your personal ‘placement search’ activity with a focus on skill application and experiential learning. 

It is expected that each one of the five pathways will engage you for a target of 128 hours over a semester. You will be assigned a ‘pathway’ tutor. Where external or internal placements operate, a workplace-based supervisor will be sought in addition. 

To advance/support learning, a short series of workshop sessions will be provided on module-relevant topics. As relevant and in a timely manner, you are expected to provide the module tutor with a copy of an agreed ‘work plan’ providing an indicative timetable of pathway tasks to be undertaken. You will be supported via Moodle throughout the module. All pathways are to be agreed by the University.  

This module is designed to develop your understanding of the emergence and development of key theories of punishment through an exploration of the history of penal theory and its contemporary challenges and controversies. Furthermore, this module seeks to refine and expand upon traditional theoretical perspectives of punishment and the current reliance upon imprisonment as a dominant form of punishment in England and Wales. In doing so, it will require you to critically engage with some of the strengths and limitations of such an approach and consider possible alternatives. 

This module will help you to acquire numerous employability skills, such as critical thinking and reflective practice. Vocationally it is linked to a range of potential criminal justice professions in the statutory, voluntary and non-governmental sectors, building your knowledge and understanding of core functions and debates in the prison and punishment realms. 

This module will develop students’ understanding of advanced criminological theory through engagement with a range of contemporary perspectives on crime, deviance, harm, and social control. It is designed to extend prior knowledge by introducing students to more complex theoretical traditions within the criminological canon. The module draws on a diverse body of thought, including Foucauldian approaches to power, control and governmentality, existentialism and phenomenology, critical race criminology, southern theory, green criminology, ultra-realism, hauntology, queer theory, and abolitionist perspectives. These traditions are considered in relation to one another, with attention to their underlying epistemological assumptions, points of conceptual tension, and areas of philosophical overlap. 

The emphasis throughout the module is on introducing students to these different theoretical frameworks as part of the wider ‘toolbox’ of criminology and how each of these traditions approach the definition and explanation of crime, deviance, harm, and social control, and how they inform wider debates around social justice and inequalities. Students will engage closely with key theorists, concepts and texts, working to evaluate the strengths and limitations of different perspectives and their relevance to contemporary issues. The module supports the development of a more confident and reflexive approach to theory, enabling students to move beyond description towards analysis, comparison, and application. 

Students will be assessed through a critical comparative portfolio that requires them to critically discuss different criminological traditions, assessing their conceptual tensions, epistemological assumptions, and practical approaches to crime, deviance, harm, and social control. The portfolio is designed to evaluate students’ ability to synthesise complex theoretical material, construct logically developed and concise arguments, and apply advanced criminological perspectives to contemporary issues in a critical and coherent manner. Emphasis is placed on clarity of argument, depth of theoretical engagement, and the ability to draw meaningful connections and critique between traditions. Overall, the module provides an introduction to advanced criminological theory, equipping students with the conceptual and analytical tools required for independent, critically informed study at Level 6 

Activism and social movements have attempted to address a wide range of social problems and influence social change. Historically, movements have had significant influence on social relations and social policy. This module will critically investigate a range of historical and contemporary social movements and activism better understand these movements and their internal processes and external contexts. Various theories will be explored to get a good grasp of what brings about social movements, how they operate, and when they succeed. The social movements discussed in this module will include climate justice, racial justice, workers’ rights, anti-authoritarian movements, feminist and queer movements, among others. Each week will focus on a few concepts (e.g. racial capitalism, abolition, neoliberal feminism) based on a particular case study (e.g. women in the Egyptian Revolution of 2011, emotions in ACT UP, use of social media in Occupy movements.  

In this module you will explore the role of social movements in the creation of social change around the world. You will also critically examine social movement theories in relation to those movements. By the end of the module, you will have an understanding of the processes involved in the onset, mobilization, progress and outcomes of social movements and movement organisations.  

This module examines fascism, the far-right, and forms of extremism through a sociological lens, situating them within wider processes of power, inequality, identity, and social change. It explores how extremist ideologies emerge, how they are sustained, and how they operate across historical and contemporary contexts. The module also considers genocides as extreme manifestations of social exclusion and violence, alongside their cultural representation and collective memory. 

Drawing on key sociological theories and contemporary research, the module engages with themes such as nationalism, racism, populism, authoritarianism, and political violence. It critically examines how social divisions (including race, class, gender, religion and citizenship) are mobilised within extremist movements, and how these relate to broader structures of power and inequality. 

Alongside this, the module explores resistance to fascism and extremism, including grassroots activism, cultural opposition, digital resistance, and policy responses. It also considers ethical challenges in researching and representing violence and atrocity. 

Teaching is delivered through a weekly 3-hour interactive workshop format, combining short lectures, group discussion, collaborative tasks, and engagement with visual, textual and digital sources. A weekly 1-hour optional drop-in session provides additional academic support and space for discussion. Students are expected to undertake weekly reading, directed online activities, and independent study to support their learning. 

By the end of the module, students will have developed a critical, research-informed understanding of extremism and resistance, and will be able to apply sociological concepts and methods to complex and contested social issues.

Ever questioned ‘Who to call if not the police?’ or ‘If not prisons, what else? This innovative module will encourage you to think critically about the meaning of justice in contemporary societies. Rather than accepting criminalisation, policing and punishment as inevitable systems of control, you will explore how differing frameworks of justice explain the function of current criminal legal systems (and wider forms of carceral containment).  

Central to these considerations will be past and current impacts of criminalisation, harm and victimisation for specific social groups. Emphasis will be placed on the interlocking nature of capitalist, patriarchal, racist and colonial power-dynamics that shape how ‘justice’ is conceptualised and delivered on a global scale and who may come to be disproportionately policed, punished and confined as a result.  

Building upon this foundation, you will analyse radical approaches to justice being imagined, created and mobilised by communities around the world. In doing so, you will explore alternative models of justice and examine key differences between ‘reformist’ and ‘non-reformist reforms’. You will engage in critical conversations surrounding defunding the police, decriminalising sex work, addressing violence against women and girls and de-carceration. You will also explore examples of social advocacy, mutual aid and the redistribution of resources through the lens of abolitionism.  

Throughout this module, you will be encouraged to think ‘outside of the box’ in considering how to best address (and respond to) the interpersonal and structural forms of harm in contemporary societies. This will then be assessed through an in-person assignment with supporting formative tasks throughout the module. Your employability and preparedness for justice-focused roles and beyond will be enhanced by analysing a range of national and international perspectives, policies and practices, while developing your communication and presentation skills. 

The module provides you with an introduction to postcolonial studies. The module gives you an overview of how European colonialism operated, legacies of colonialism in the present, and contestations of these legacies. It examines the writings of key thinkers in postcolonial studies as well as the applicability of their ideas for interpreting and critiquing contemporary politics. The module has a transnational focus. It engages with Anglo-American, Western European, Latin American, Chinese, South Asian, North African, and Australasian postcolonial contexts. Focus is placed on the empirical postcolonial developments and scholarship that emanate from these regions. You are thereby exposed to key historical and contemporary political issues across national borders. Teaching provision consists of lectures, seminars, and student-led presentation sessions. Guest lectures and optional cross-university readings groups will supplement the learning.   

This module helps to embed the study of politics and society across all levels of the sociology degree programme by complimenting modules offered at level 4, level 5 and a level 6 module on Globalisation. The Postcoloniality module feeds into the decolonizing the curriculum movement by virtue of its content. The module is geared to prepare you for Masters level study in social and political theory courses. The summative assessment will consistent of an essay.  

This module introduces you to hate crime and issues related to hate crime. You will develop a key understanding of criminological concepts and theoretical approaches which have been developed in relation to hate crime. It will allow you an opportunity to examine and conceptualise some of the key debates around hate crime, policy, human rights, crime prevention, security, and policing. This module will identify problems around the processes of criminalisation and victimisation, the causes and organisation of crime and deviance, and the processes of preventing and managing crime and victimisation.  

You will examine the different processes of victimisation whether by or of individuals, groups, families, communities, institutions or the state, and be able to evaluate the impact upon individuals and society.  You will also be able to examine the development, role, organisation and governance of efforts to reduce and prevent crime, deviance and harm, and to ensure personal and public safety and security in different locations.   

Some of the more technical skills you will acquire will include written and oral communication skills, including, participating in academic debates and working productively in a group. The assessment for this module is an essay which engages in a critical discussion around the nature of hate crime and the ways in which it is policed. The module will work well alongside the other criminology, policing and security studies modules where issues of victimisation within the criminal justice system are examined.  

This module will provide students with a critical understanding of contemporary patterns and debates around intimacy, communities, and belonging. Questions such as: How has romantic and other forms of intimacy changed over time? How do people fulfil their need for community and connection with others? Why do people live the lives they do? What do their behaviours tell us about modern life? 

This module introduces key concepts and theories to help explore, understand, and critically analyse topics such as friendship, casual sex/relationships, consensual non-monogamy, fandoms, online culture, parasocial relationships, AI, nature, loneliness, the manosphere, and social media.  

Through a combination of theoretical engagement and analysis of contemporary case studies, students will develop critical thinking skills that allow them to evaluate various interpretations of people’s behaviours. The module emphasises the importance of understanding wider sociocultural factors when considering how and why people do what they do.  

Students will have the opportunity to pursue an assessment on topics that align with their own interests, developing their ability to synthesise academic literature and construct well-evidenced and nuanced arguments. These skills - critical analysis of complex social issues, evaluating multiple perspectives, and presenting reasoned arguments - are highly valued in diverse professional contexts including policy development, human resources, advocacy work, education, and research. 

Crimes of the Powerful encompasses the damaging and victimising behaviours perpetrated by privately or publicly operated corporations, as well as the state facilitated legalistic and political responses to these activities. Within criminology and wider academia, we generally fail to scrutinise those who operate within the highest levels of society – those individuals or institutions with much economic and cultural capital. This module will address such deficiencies by providing a nuanced and holistic overview of the actions of such individuals, organisations and State actors.  

By utilising critical criminological theories and critical notions of violence underpinned by zemiology (the study of social harm), this module will highlight the contradictions in conventional state and academic approaches to criminality, whilst also demonstrating that some of the most significant harms and dangers we currently face – both in the UK and abroad - are interwoven into very fabric of normality. Specifically, we will look at how many of the harms produced by the powerful are engrained and proliferated within the globalised context of neo-liberal capitalism and consumer ideology.   

By presenting both theoretical discussions and real-life cases, you will be provided an opportunity to develop knowledge and critical understanding of criminology and related disciplines both in theory and in practice. You will also be exposed to one of the areas of excellence of our research centre and the research specialisms of staff. 

This module will provide you with a comprehensive and critical introduction to these topics and encourages you to actively research areas of interest through the development of an assessed case study, culminating in an essay. The assessment will assist in the development of key employability skills including written communication, critical analysis, problem-solving, and ethical and social awareness.