Programme Proposal MSc in Global and International Sociology
 Academic strategy:
A taught masters in Global and International Sociology will offer a conversion programme that opens
up the possibility of engagement with the discipline to a wider range of graduates and will maximise
our use of existing teaching strengths in Sociology. This will be an additional offering that will provide
a platform more effectively show casing existing teaching within the subject group. It will create new
point of entry to the school for students seeking a taught MSc in social science. It also offers a
sufficiently flexible programme to enable an end of first semester opportunity to convert to an MSc by
research if the student recognises that he or she may progress to a PhD and wishes to have an MSc
recognised as a research training degree by a UK research funding council. It uses existing research
training courses in theory and in research methods combined with a single new core module ‘Key
Debates in Sociology’ and a range of substantive courses that reflect the research specialisms of the
teaching staff.
The study of Sociology is a highly relevant general education to all seeking to effect social change,
whether in personal life or on a wider scale as activists, managers, practitioners or policy makers. The
core elements of the discipline are social theory, capturing the social world in ways that are
illuminating and can be matched to the evidence, and social research, purposeful gathering appropriate
evidence about the world. While many of its concepts and tool are shared with other social science
disciplines, the breadth of sociology and its links with Geography, History, Psychology, Philosophy,
Social Anthropology, Social Policy are an aspect of its depth and strength. This programme will
provide an overview of Sociology, training in the core elements of the discipline, social theory and
social research, and access to a suite of more specialist courses.
Through core courses, students are provided with the theoretical and research tools for understanding
social change through critical engagement with and investigation of the social world. Complementary
substantive courses provide further means to critically engage with research and provide students
different perspectives and areas of substantive knowledge which will help inform their understanding
of the social world. The dissertation allows students to undertake an extended independent inquiry into
a suitable topic of their choosing with appropriate academic supervision in Sociology and the School of
Social and Political Studies.
An MSc in Global and International Sociology at the University of Edinburgh will enhance visibility as
a site of postgraduate study both of the Sociology subject group and related research centres and units
doing sociology.
The creation of an MSc in Global and International Sociology is part of strategy of developing and
contributing to a School of Social and Political Studies suite of taught masters programmes, many of
which are or will be multi &cross-disciplinary and cross-subject group. A discipline specific MSc will
strengthen the basis of our contribution to these cross-school programmes. It will, for example, help us
to build the international and global elements of our sociology programme which we wish to also make
available to a planned new cross subject group MSc in International and Global issues that is under
development.
In summary the programme will:

maximise the value of the breadth and depth of teaching that we offer at the University of
Edinburgh, by making this more available to postgraduate students.

Address a gap in our provision of sociology teaching from the perspective of international
students looking for taught MScs

Strengthen elements of Sociology postgraduate teaching that can then be redeployed in
interdisciplinary programmes

Resource Implications:
The programme will involve the creation of one new core course; the optional courses either already
exist, or will be MSc variants of extant Honours courses. The majority of courses are taught by
members of the Sociology Subject Area.
The programme will be run by existing Sociology teaching staff, and may cross list sociological
courses taught outside the school with the permission of those concerned. It uses school postgraduate
training theory and methods courses most of which are taught by Sociology staff. The optional courses
are predominantly MSc courses which have started life as sociology honours courses and have
developed into MSc courses with additional postgraduate elements taught by existing sociology staff.
The new one entirely new course will be team taught drawing on the staff teams who are delivering
ordinary teaching to our undergraduates in the year of the MSc delivery. Our undergraduate teaching
teams will rework their material into a logical sequence of MSc classes: a set of 4-5 lectures currently
delivered to first or second year undergraduates will be reworked into a single teaching session at an
MSc level and the resulting sequence will constitute a coherent programme of key debates. This
combination creates considerable resilience in the teaching arrangements.
The programme will generate additional demands through increased marking-related workloads on
optional courses, demand for supervision and marking of dissertations. No additional resources are
required, assuming Sociology are able to meet existing everyday teaching commitments, because
anticipated numbers will be relatively modest and anticipated additional demands therefore will be low.
Preliminary market research conducted by web-based scrutiny of MScs in Sociology offered elsewhere
suggests that likely student numbers will be modest. Because the proposed programme draws on
existing courses, the risks involved are relatively slight.
Standard fees will be charged. Administrative support, appointment of board of examines and review
procedures will be under the umbrella of the graduate school.
 Market Information:
Market research conducted by Paul Whybrow using the web to scrutinise competitors has established
that there is a market for this degree. Taught MScs in Sociology are offered by most leading UK
sociology departments including Manchester which is the top rated sociology department in the country
according to the most recent RAE. Telephone enquiries have indicated a steady demand for these
degrees, and PG enquiries directed to Sociology over the past few years similarly suggest interest in
such a programme. The research indicates that there is a market, suggests that the attractiveness of
Edinburgh should enable us to do as well as our competitors (particularly with appropriate advertising)
and highlights that we risk falling behind and losing out to competitor institutions in not running such a
programme.
 Marketing Strategy:
We will make full use of sociological professional associations including the British Sociological
Association website, the American Sociological Association listings and their Graduate school
directory, European Sociological Association and International Sociological Association networks and
the UK heads of sociology email network. We will ensure the attractiveness of our own website. In
addition, we will use the personal networks of staff as well as more generic graduate school
advertising.