Sociology
What is Sociology?
"Sociology acts as a meddlesome and often irritating stranger. It disturbs the comfortingly quiet way of life by asking questions no one among the ‘locals’ remembers being asked, let alone answered. Such questions make evident things into puzzles: they defamiliarize the familiar" (Zygmunt Bauman, 1990)
Sociology seeks to understand and describe our own local society and the wider global setting in which it exists. Sociologists ask questions like:
- How is society structured?
- How is society changing?
- What divides or unites social groups?
- What causes the inequalities we see in society?
- How does power operate?
- What forces impact on our personal and cultural identities?
It is among the most fundamental of the social sciences with perhaps the broadest scope. There are sociologists that are interested in virtually all aspects of the social world.
It is a "critical discipline." This means it goes beyond surface appearances to try to find out how things really are in the social world and really work. It is not afraid to ask hard questions and to challenge the status quo.
What topics do Sociologists study?
Sociologists study such important areas as culture, ethnicity, class, inequality, gender, the mass media, politics, health, the environment, social change and all forms of individual and group interaction.
What kinds of skills does Sociology offer?
You will learn to think critically about the world in which you live, and become accomplished in different ways of systematically investigating social issues and other aspects of society. More generally, you will learn to explore deeper aspects of social issues that lie behind "common sense" thinking, media representations and policy reforms. You will learn how knowledge is generated and, using a range of techniques (research skills) how to find out about aspects of society yourself. These are attributes that are extremely useful in a wide variety of occupations and professions. Sociology is not a narrow specialty that locks you into a limited career path. It is a broad area that can lead to many possibilities.
Sociology students have found employment in a range of areas including the media, iwi organisations, social services, local government, research, voluntary organisations, health and so on. Employers value the critical thinking, research abilities and communication skills that we foster in the Sociology programme.
What is the Sociology Programme like?
The Sociology staff are people who are passionate about their discipline, who care about people, society and inequality, and who want to understand how all these and other factors interact to produce the society we live in today.
The Sociology Programme includes five academic staff at Manawatu, three at Albany and one at the Wellington Campus. The Programme at Manawatu offers a wide range of papers each academic year. Many of these papers are available by distance learning as well as internally. A full taught undergraduate programme is also offered at the Albany Campus.
The Programme is a substantial one, committed to excellence in teaching and research. In an era of globalisation and growing social inequality, we seek to demonstrate to our students the excitement and practical social relevance of sociology, a critical and fundamental intellectual discipline.
The structure of our degree programmes reflect our commitment to the discipline. At both the undergraduate and post graduate levels we emphasize the importance of a solid grounding in both theory and research methods. Both are essential to a practising sociologist. We do not stop there, however, as we offer a varied assortment of substantive papers that reflect the diverse interests, expertise and experience of our academic staff.
Interested in finding out more about a Sociology qualification?
Check out the Paper Offerings for details of the papers we offer.
If you have any more specific enquiries please contact the Programme Coordinator (located in Albany) or if in Palmerston North you can get advice from the Manawatu Student Advisor
