Sociology, Ph.D. / Distance Learning Ph.D. / M.Phil.

Start dates: 1st October, 1st January, 1st April, 1st July. Build your interest in sociology and extend your knowledge in a dynamic research environment, with a strong focus on research training. We’ll enable you to advance your analytical and research skills while equipping you with the tools for confident, autonomous thinking, which are much-in-demand from employers.

The Department of Criminology, Sociology and Social Policy is home to a multi-disciplinary team of staff whose work reflects shared principles of promoting social justice, equality, and diversity as a basis for human well-being. Staff in the department are committed to conceptually sophisticated, and socially relevant research and scholarship, with expertise in a diverse array of theoretical traditions. Our staff can offer supervision across a wide range of social science research themes and methods.

We welcome both empirical and theoretical project proposals as well as opportunities for interdisciplinary research. The department plays a vital role in emerging and novel intellectual areas and addresses the widest range of trends, problems and dilemmas of a rapidly changing social world. As a student at our School of Social Sciences, you will benefit from a dynamic and supportive research environment with many opportunities to make connections across disciplines and develop links with organisations and policymakers both in the UK and abroad.

According to the most recent Research Excellence Framework in 2021, over 81% of the research in Education, Sociology and social policy was of international or world-leading quality. We have a wide range of expertise, and we invite applications for research degrees in the following areas: Critical disability studies Cultural sociology Families and social changes in China Feminist theory and activism International migration, and student mobility Intervention development and process evaluation Mental health Migration Political sociology Racisms Sexuality, LGBT+, and queer studies Social Class Social exclusion and justice Sociology of education Trade unions Latin American, and East Asia Qualitative research including narrative and biographical methods Wales and devolution Youth culture