Level 2

In this module, you’ll take a journey across the social research process, exploring what social research is, how it’s conducted, and why it’s important. Social research forms a crucial part of efforts to shape and improve societies, and you’ll consider the many different ways that social researchers use their research to make a difference. You’ll also learn about gender, race and social class, which are core themes throughout. The module has been designed to leave you feeling curious, inspired, and empowered to think critically about the process of producing knowledge about the social world.

Technology has always been a part of society but the digital revolution of recent decades means that we are living through a period of particularly rapid change. This module is for anyone curious about the societal impacts of digital technology. Throughout the module you'll learn core sociological theory that will help you unpack and understand the societal, political and environmental impacts of digital technology. You'll consider digital societies in relation to three broad technological themes: individuals and society, power and inequality and, people and things.

This is an introduction to the way that the theories and tools of economics are used in the workplace and everyday life. Using interviews with working economists and real-world examples, such as tackling flood risk, planning for climate change and using sugar taxes to improve public health, it'll demonstrates how economics is used and embedded in the lives that we lead. Moreover, it'll give you a taste of what it might be like to work in one of the many careers where aspects of economics would be utilised on a daily basis.

Before registering for this module, to help you decide whether you're ready to study at this level, you can take our Are you ready for DD226? quiz. There is also advice on preparatory materials you can study before you start in order to be better prepared for your studies.

This module locates counselling within the broader field of mental health and provides a comprehensive and engaging introduction to the often controversial debates around mental health/illness and the main theories and practices in counselling. The module will critically examine the definitions and understandings of mental health issues and the ways they are treated in the related fields of practice, especially in counselling and psychotherapy. You'll be presented with recent theoretical debates and contemporary international research to inform and help you develop a critical understanding of the themes and issues related to mental health and counselling.

This introduction to the fundamentals of music will allow you to understand and use music notation. You’ll study the elements of music and how these are assembled into larger musical structures, focusing on music encountered in Western traditions (popular and classical). You’ll learn to make sense of a wide variety of notated music, and you’ll be encouraged to make meaningful connections between the topics you study and your own experiences and tastes through independent study. You’ll develop practical musicianship skills, using professional music-notation software, that will provide you with a grounding for arranging and composing.

How have writers chosen to tell their stories, and why? What techniques do they use to make us believe in the reality of the worlds they create? If you’re interested in finding out in depth about how literature works this module is for you. You'll read gripping stories from across literary history, from Shakespeare to science fiction, from Thomas Hardy to Arundhati Roy, with a particular focus on nineteenth- and twentieth-century novels.

This module starts with the question: how do social science perspectives change the way we understand and respond to the major environmental challenges of our time? You'll explore how understandings of environment and society had profound and unequal consequences for people and ecosystems across the planet, in the age of the Anthropocene. You'll also explore ways of understanding environmental and societal issues that are entangled in cultural, economic, social, and political terms and look at how these can provide the resources required to value environments differently and to build new models of responsibility required to navigate the Anthropocene.

This module introduces you to the many ways criminologists seek to explain crime, victims of crime and the role of criminal justice. Through the use of engaging topics, each study week begins with examples of crimes or criminal justice problems that you may recognise from the news, other media outlets and popular culture. It will gently introduce you to different criminological concepts and theories and you'll actively engage and explore these through the use of virtual learning environment activities and written assessment. You'll become equipped with the skills needed to understand theories and concepts about crime, and will advance your understanding of everyday social issues that may influence crime and victims of crime.

This module explores the nature of musical sound and the ways that technology can be used by creative musicians. You'll be introduced to the skills needed for making recordings, and the module resources include software packages for analysing and editing recorded sound. You'll study how the physics of sound underlie musical experiences, and investigate the acoustic properties of different instruments. The module aims to deepen your understanding of the nature of sound and to equip you better as a musician, whatever your background and musical interests.

This module takes an integrative approach, focusing on the everyday questions that psychology can help us to answer. Why do we help one another? Do you see what I see? How do we know what’s right? Investigating how we understand others and the world around us, the module draws on biological, cognitive, developmental and social research in psychology to help you answer questions such as these. You will also learn how to design and conduct your own research, covering a number of different methods for gathering and analysing evidence on psychological processes.