- Introduction
- Why profiles are important
- How to use the profiles
- Profiles
- Employers' criteria
- Reflective questions
- Glossary of competencies
- Further details
- Acknowledgments
Sociology
View the employability skills
A graduate in sociology typically will have the ability to:
- formulate and investigate sociologically informed questions
- use major theoretical perspectives and concepts and review these against their application to social life
- analyse, assess and communicate empirical sociological information
- identify and comment on different research strategies and methods
- conduct sociological research in a preliminary way
- undertake and present scholarly work
- understand the ethical implications of sociological enquiry
- recognise the relevance of sociological knowledge to social, public and civic policy
- judge and evaluate evidence
- appreciate the complexity and diversity of social situations
- assess the merits of competing theories and explanations
- gather, retrieve and synthesise information
- make reasoned arguments and interpret evidence and texts
- reflect on own accumulation of knowledge
- apply learning and study skills
- communicate in writing and orally in a variety of contexts and modes
- use statistical and other quantitative techniques and information retrieval skills, in relation to primary and secondary sources of information
- apply information technology skills
- use skills of time planning and management and deploy group work skills.
Sociology is concerned with developing knowledge and understanding of the social world, its dynamic character is driven by change which is intrinsic to social life. Its focus is on the relations that connect individuals, groups and institutions. It seeks to understand how societies, institutions and practices of all kinds came into being, how they are currently organised, and how they might change in the future. When it looks at the relationships, characteristics, understandings and practices of individuals themselves, it does so from the standpoint of their relations with others.
Sociology is a core social science discipline that feeds many other areas of study concerned with the human world but maintains a distinctive concern for the social dimensions of human interaction. An understanding of the distinctively social features of human life is largely a product of the 19th and 20th centuries, but sociology is not restricted to the study of modern societies. A sociological perspective, once attained, is fruitfully employed in historical and comparative studies of changing forms of human interaction, social order, inequality, conflict and institutions and culture.
Sociology is both theoretical and evidence based. As a theoretical discipline, its concerns relate to other social sciences, and also to philosophy and political theory as well as to practical ethics and to social, public and civic policy and the underpinning of social order. There are numerous, legitimate sources of theoretical diversity. As an evidence based discipline, sociology insists on the scrutiny and evidenced reassessment of everyday understandings of the social world. Its distinctive ways of knowing and understanding are rooted in sociological perspectives and insights. Sociology graduates should understand the distinctively social standpoint of sociology and the explanatory value of social analysis. This necessarily includes familiarity with the analysis of a variety of forms of human interaction, from micro to macro, their interconnections, and their dynamics.
Sociology graduates are found in a wide range of occupations. Many are attracted to careers that centre on the challenges and demands that members of a society face. This leads to jobs in social services, education, criminal justice, welfare services, government, counselling, charities and the voluntary sector. They include charity fundraiser, community development worker, counsellor, lecturer, housing officer, teacher, probation officer, social researcher, social worker and welfare rights adviser.