Sociology – (B.Sc.)

The degree programme has a specific rationale, with progression from a first year which aims to provide a comprehensive foundation in the discipline, through a second year which allows advanced work on theories and methods, together with a focus on specific topics, culminating in a third year which has a focus on in depth coverage of options drawing on current research and an opportunity for every student to conduct sociological research in a chosen field.

Features of LSE courses
As a student of LSE you will be taught by some of the world's leading sociologists, introduced to the classical traditions of the discipline, and brought into direct contact with the most advanced contemporary research and scholarship. LSE aims to be both a guardian of the discipline of sociology, and a leader in the development of the social sciences into new intellectual areas, addressing the social problems and ethical dilemmas that face a globalised post-modern society.

At LSE you will explore specific examples of social action, social processes and institutions; compare different types of social life and societies; examine theories about the nature of social existence and change; study different methods of social research and undertake some research of your own.

LSE Sociology embraces a theoretically and methodologically diverse range of approaches, focusing upon the following key areas:

* Biomedicine, Bioscience, Biotechnology: the new social, political, legal and ethical challenges facing individuals and society in the era of biotechnology, biomedicine and genomics.
* Cities and Urbanism: the relationship between social, spatial and physical forms and processes in cities: urban development and urban governance; urban environments, mobility and morphology; social and spatial exclusion; privatised control strategies and urban regeneration; urban economies, including criminal organisations, markets and cultures; crime and violence; transnational urbanism, including cities in global networks.
* Crime Culture and Control: criminological theory, criminal cultures, organisations and markets, victimology, criminal investigation, the changing nature of crime, alcohol and public disorder, punishment and control, the relationship between privatised control strategies and urban regeneration, gender and social control, the emergence of cross border criminal activity, violence.
* Economy Culture and Society: the nature of contemporary economic knowledges, including a critical engagement with both economics and economic sociology, the role of economic knowledges in economic life, and the reconstruction of economic categories from within social research. Secondly, transnationalism, development and globalisation, engaged through clear empirical focuses. Also substantive areas that group members in diverse ways, above all: work and employment, risk and regulation, money and value, consumption and market society, creative and cultural industries, technology and economy.
* Human Rights, Citizenship and Social Justice: dimensions of inequality and injustice, nationally and internationally, gender and sexual divisions, the political implications of emerging 'human rights regimes', issues of human rights in a global context, human rights in transitional justice and post-conflict reconciliation, human rights in the context of biotechnology and bio-ethics, in new forms of legal regulation, and associated with security, war and terror.
* Politics and Society: the social, economic, institutional and ideological bases of politics, the interaction of states and societies, and comparative and historical approaches. Topics of central interest are political parties and social movements, especially the study of labour movements and the left. The area encompasses the evolution and impact of political ideas, including liberalism, socialism, conservatism, populism and environmentalism, as well as political and economic democracy, ethnic violence and political repression, and fundamental social and political change.
* Race, Racism and Ethnicity: the social, cultural and governmental aspects of colonial and postcolonial societies. Topics include nationalism, challenges and transformations in geo-politics, governance and citizenship in an era characterized by migration, flight, asylum, multiculture, cultural hybridity, cosmopolitanism and supposed 'civilisational' conflict. Comparative research, especially involving Brazil, South Africa and the United States, is well represented. Currently key themes are the optimum social, cultural and economic conditions for sustainable 'multiculturalism'; the significance of race in colonial government, particularly war, law and states of emergency; the relationship between cultural plurality and security; historical study of connections between race and ethnography; the impacts of synthetic biology and molecularisation on racial discourses and identities; the Bengali diaspora, the comparative study of diasporas; race, youth and identity.

Our teaching is informed by these commitments and by our own active research in these areas.