About the Department of Sociology
As a member of staff in the Department of Sociology, you’ll be joining a community of people working together to effect practical change.
As one of the longest established and distinguished in the UK, our department has played an important role in the development of the discipline internationally. The Department was ranked 1st in the recent Research Excellence Framework exercise (Times Higher Education's ranking of the 2014 Research Excellence Framework) and is a World Top 100 Department (QS rankings by subject 2019). Our research is recognised as amongst the most innovative and influential in the world.
We are a collegiate department with a vibrant, research-intensive group of staff. We are a close-knit community of academic colleagues, teaching and research staff, and professional services colleagues, with a number of postgraduate students resident in the building as well as space for our student and staff groups to interact.
We are also pleased to include a number of emeritus colleagues, honorary fellows, and visiting scholars in our activities. Recent appointments have seen us expand our expertise in areas such as culture, urban sociology, criminology, ethnicity, migration, gender, sexuality, human rights, health, science and technology, and religion.
The Department is led by a Management Team which consists of:
- Professor Paul Johnson - Head of Department
- Dr Laurie Hanquinet - Deputy Head of Department
- Sam Bayley - Department Manager
- Professor Sarah Nettleton - Director of Research
- Professor Nik Brown - Director of REF
- Professor Ellen Annandale - Chair of Impact Committee
- Sophie Bramley - Research Facilitator
- Lauren Cumming - Student Services Manager
- Dr Gareth Millington - Chair of the Board of Studies
- Dr Richard Tutton - Director of Teaching
- Professor Robin Wooffitt - Employability Coordinator
- Professor Victoria Robinson - Director of the Department of Women's Studies (CWS).
The Department is housed in Wentworth College, which is adjacent to the main University lake and served by a restaurant.
Our Values
We are committed to maintaining a collegial working environment in which we:
- Work collaboratively for the common good of the Department as a whole
- Respect academic freedom and the right of colleagues to pursue their chosen research interests
- Acknowledge the success of individuals and groups within the Department
- Embrace change, nurture new ideas and seek out innovative thinking
- Foster open communication and enable all voices to be heard
- Are open to diverse points of view and accept differences of opinion
- Treat each other fairly and with respect, show confidence in and support each other
In line with our Green Impact accreditation, our colleagues are committed to going about duties in a resource efficient way and minimising impacts to the environment wherever possible.
Research
We aim to produce world-leading research that is theoretically innovative, empirically grounded, critically engaged and relevant to policy.. This is enabled by our proactive Director of Research and Research Facilitator, who are supported by the Department Research Committee and impact sub-committee.
Research in the Department is consolidated into four core clusters which engage in empirical and theoretical work:
- Culture, values and practices
- Language and social interaction
- Gender, sexuality and inequality
- Science, health and technology.
Several members of staff work across as well as within these clusters, each of which supports the work of colleagues through activities such as regular reading groups and research development meetings.
We’re committed to interdisciplinary work. We current have have a number of links (both in teaching and research) with Departments such as Biology, Computer Science, English, Environment and Geography, Health Sciences and Hull York Medical School (HYMS), History, Language and Linguistic Science, Law, Management, Theatre, Film & Television, Politics, and Social Policy and Social Work.
The Department is home to several research centres and is heavily involved in others:
Academic, research and teaching colleagues and PhD students, are able to apply to the Departmental Research Committee for funding to support travel and conference attendance. We are committed to supporting our colleagues’ professional development.
For academic colleagues with research duties, we ensure that a large proportion of time is allocated in the workload plan to support research activity, on top of time costed into grants.
Teaching Programmes
Although we are a research-intensive department, we take teaching very seriously and are committed to providing a research-led, high quality experience to our undergraduate and postgraduate students. We currently offer three undergraduate BA (hons) degrees within the Department (typical A level offer ABB):
In addition we are central to joint degrees with Education and with Philosophy. We also contribute to the BA Criminology, and to the School of Social and Political Sciences (with colleagues in the Departments of Politics and in Social Policy and Social Work).
We currently offer five taught postgraduate degrees:
- MA Criminology and Social Research
- MA Social Media and Social Research
- MA Culture, Society and Globalisation
- MSc Social Media and Management (in partnership with the York Management School)
- MA Social Media and Interactive Technologies (jointly with Computer Science)
We are also central to the delivery of the MA Social Research which is coordinated from the Research Centre for Social Sciences (ReCSS).
Doctoral Programme
Sociology has a vibrant research postgraduate community who are provided with first-rate facilities, including office space and a dedicated social space. The Department is part of the White Rose ESRC Doctoral Training Partnership, a collaboration between the Universities of Leeds, Sheffield and York. The Research Centre for the Social Sciences (ReCSS) at York is also a focal point for postgraduate activity.
Professional services team
Professional services colleagues are at the heart of the Department. We cover a wide range of operational areas and work collaboratively to deliver an outstanding service to our students and academic staff, as well as working in partnership with colleagues around the institution (and beyond).
We have high expectations of our professional services colleagues and highly value their input. We are committed to helping them develop and thrive; colleagues have access to development funding to attend external training and conferences, as well as an outstanding range of training and development opportunities provided by the University.
We operate with flexibility to ensure that our services run effectively while providing staff with an appropriate work-life balance and the opportunity to pursue activities outside the workplace including part-time postgraduate study.