Marylynn Fyvie-GauldCourse Leader

Applied Social Science BA(Hons)

What is Applied Social Science?

• It is applied to social problems and social issues • Sociology

• Psychology

• Criminal policy

• It is also about the application of the ‘ologies’• Research

• Social policy

What the degree looks like

First Year

Sem. 1 Sociological Imaginations Introduction to Applied Psychology

Introduction to Social Policy

Sem.2 Foundations of Sociology Deviance and Social Control

Social Science Research Methods

Second Year

Sem.1 OptionalTheorising the Social World

OptionalPublic Policy and Managements

Social and Developmental Psychology

Community and Personal Development

Research Project

Sem.2 OptionalMobilisation, Movements and Protest

OptionalThe Social Context of Health and Illness

Social Policy: Welfare and Control

Third YearSEMESTER ONE SEMESTER TWO

Dissertation

Working on the Margins Contemporary Studies in Crime and Justice

Critical Criminology and Criminal Justice Health, Politics and Marketization

Health Policy in the UK Critical Addiction Studies

Transport and Society Developing Therapeutic Relations

Global Social Policy Community Psychology

Policy Analysis Sociology Topic 2

Critical Psychology Critical Perspectives on Learning and Education

Sociology Topic 1

So what is it like at University?

Or like this?

‘Wife’ or ‘Mother-in-Law’ W.E. Hill, 1915

Your Moral Compass

You are walking down the street one day and you find

One Hundred Pounds

Do you:

Put the money in your bagDo you take the money to the

police

What if you find the money belongs to

An older womenWould this change your mind

NO?

What if that older woman

Was saving for an operation for her very ill grandchild

Would that change your mind?

YES

But that older woman was also

A drug dealerWould that make you change your mind?

Yes?

No?

Is there right and wrong

Or just different ways oflooking at the same thing

The Science of the Greater Good

The Curious Case of Stanley Milgram

Obedience to Authority Figures

Obedience to Authority FiguresJuly 1961 The experiment followed the trial of Adolf Eichmann

Milgram wanted to ascertain if the people involved in the Holocaust shared a sense of morality or merely ‘following orders’

The experiment comprised the learner, the teacher and the person running the experiment

The results65% of the participants administered the

final massive 450-volt shock

One participant only refused to administer shocks below 300-volt level

Milgram concluded that: Aspects of obedience are of important Ordinary people can undertake reprehensible acts of

violence against other people

Where is this degree going to take me?

• Higher proportions of social scientists are employed in ‘professional, scientific and technical activities’ than any other subject group

1%

6%5%

0%

81%

7%

1%

Employment status of social science graduate

voluntary/unpaid work

work and further study combined

further study

creative portfolio

full time paid employment

paid employment part-time

employed mode unknown

Campaign for Social Science 2013

Where is this degree going to take me?

• 7 in 10 social scientists are in ‘professional’ or ‘associate professional and technical’ occupations within 3.5 years of graduating

• A greater proportion of social scientists are already ‘managers, directors and senior officials’ than graduates of any other subject group 3.5 years after their first degrees

• Graduates in social science subjects offer a wide range of skills valuable to employers across the public, private and third sectors

• Soft skills: understanding complex issues, research, analyse and evaluate critically, question assumptions, understand people, institutions and their relationship, make reasoned arguments, communicate

Campaign for Social Science, 2013

Our graduates progress to work in:

• Third sector:

• Ex-offender mentoring

• Working with families and young children

• Mental health

• Citizens Advice Bureau

• Working with marginalised groups

• research

• Statutory sector

• Police

• Teaching

• Post graduate study: social science, criminology, social work