MA Criminology and Sociology MA Postgraduate Taught - September 2025/26* & January 2025/26* Entry

A single or joint honours degree of at least 2(ii) in Criminology, Sociology, Law, Political Science, Social Studies, Social Policy, or a related academic discipline.

Applications from candidates who have relevant professional experience in lieu of a bachelor degree will also be considered. All applicants in this category will be invited for interview.

If your native language is not English, you must provide satisfactory evidence that you have an adequate knowledge and understanding of written and spoken English: 

• IELTS: 6.0 (with no element below 5.5)
• Pearson PTE: a score of 56 (with no element lower than 51)
• Cambridge English Test – Advanced: 169 (with no element lower than 162)

The course prepares for a wide range of employment including:

• Law-enforcement agencies: the police, customs, the prison service
• Public administration: including crime prevention units, offender management, general administration, international institutions
• Political associations, work for members of parliaments, for lobby groups related to the criminal justice system and to issues of social justice broadly conceived
• Research institutes, researching criminological and sociological issues
• Paid jobs with charities working on providing housing, or working with juveniles at risk or prison leavers etc
• Academic institutions such as universities

This MA in Criminology and Sociology is taught in two parts.

Part 1: Students must take 120 credits from modules that include;

• Research Process and Meaning: The module provides postgraduate level training in the main varieties of qualitative and mixed methods research in the social sciences, including basic literacy in qualitative data analysis. Locating the research process in debates about situated knowledge, reflexivity and subjectivity, show how research design is unavoidably grounded in assumptions about the nature of the phenomena to be investigated and how researchers are implicated in the things they describe. Students are taught how to generate qualitative data and how to apply a variety of analysis techniques. The use of ‘mixed’ methods is addressed through examples of text analysis, visual interpretation and online social research. Training in the use of NVivo qualitative data analysis software is an integral part of the module and takes place alongside the sessions dealing with analysing conversation, interviews, observations, ethnographic accounts, texts and visuals.
• Comparative and International Criminal Justice: The module provides an international and comparative perspective on key areas of criminal justice. These include questions of the operation of systems of criminal justice in the UK and other countries.
• Key Issues in Criminology: The module covers aspects of the work of the police, how citizens view law-enforcement institutions and how people react to crime and to opportunities to commit crime. Media portrayals of crime, police and justice issues are also discussed.
• Transnational Crime: This module focuses crime that transgresses national boundaries, for example people trafficking and internet crime.
• Nationalism: The module deals with the phenomenon of nationalism and its relation to societies, using historical and current examples. Discussed are issues like the construction of identities."

Other modules offered include: 

• Climate Change and the Politics of Climate Justice
• Key Issues in Social Policy, covering e.g. housing and income support
• Theorizing Society and Politics.

Part 2: Research Dissertation (60 credits)
Under guidance of a dissertation tutor, students will undertake a piece of research independently on a topic of their choice. This may be a piece of empirical research including primary or secondary data analysis or a theoretical dissertation. Part-time students in employment may choose a topic related to their profession and an area in which they wish to develop further expertise and specialisation The dissertation is normally around 20,000 words in length.