Year 3 (national level 6):
Core modules:
- Practical Application (20 credits)
Undertake work-based practice in an organisational setting of your choice and utilise this experience to develop and reflect upon a range of generic, subject and programme specific skills, which you are likely to need in your future career.
- Health and Social Care Dissertation (40 credits)
Complete a sustained research enquiry into a health and social care-related issue/topic of your own choice. Draw on your understanding of research methodologies and methods, relevant theoretical knowledge, and literature within your field of study.
- Life Course Approaches to Health and Ageing (20 credits)
Build on the knowledge gained throughout the course with a theoretical analysis, taking a critical stance to the dominant position of biomedicine and policy directions to health, development, wellbeing, and illness in the adult and ageing population. Explore a biopsychosocial approach through the medium of life course theory and exploration of each later stage of the lifespan.
Optional modules:
- Violence, Gender and Society (20 credits)
Engage with concepts and theories of gender and patriarchy to critically make sense of domestic violence in intimate relationships. Comprehend how theories of gender and patriarchy construct ‘love’ in intimate relationships in ways which produce inequalities and power. Analyse the underpinning models of criminal justice in England and Wales to make sense of how this system works in patriarchal society, to understand outcomes for domestic violence offenders and victims. Evaluate contemporary research including key theoretical frameworks to analyse how domestic violence is perpetuated. Analyse and present theoretical and empirical research to construct knowledge during the module.
- The Clinical Gaze: Medicine, Disability and Confinement (20 credits)
Examine the expansion of medicine as an institution of power which defines and controls contemporary populations. Critically evaluate the history of medicine with reference to the construction of disability through the notion of ‘normality’ and ‘abnormality’. Study the historical development of key professions such as clinical medicine and psychiatry. Develop critical knowledge around disability and long-term health conditions as forms of social exclusion.
- Social Entrepreneurship and Project Management (20 credits)
Examine the current emphasis on developing social enterprises to deliver services in the public sector. Explore the ways in which management theory has influenced the development of services in the public and voluntary sector. Develop and apply business and entrepreneurial skills to prepare yourself for professional opportunities after graduating. Gain the ability to apply principles and values linked to equality, diversity, and empowerment to practice.
- Contemporary Issues in Social Welfare (20 credits)
Examine emerging social issues in detail and their implications for practice. Revisit and extend your understanding of the political and ideological context for social policy and practise responses to such issues. Develop a more complex understanding of human rights principles and explore current debates around the impacts of inequality on health, welfare, and economic wellbeing in relation to a contemporary social issue.
- Substance Use and Society (20 credits)
Develop critical evaluation of social, cultural, and historical use of substances within society and how substances have been classified and regulated over time. Appreciate why substances are used and the relative prevalence and harms of both legal and illicit substances in the UK, Europe and internationally. Explore theories of drug use and addiction and ways in which problematic use is treated. Consider the biopsychosocial reasons and effects for/of using substances and the wider social and political landscape in which use may become problematic.
Please note, optional modules are subject to change.
