History and Sociology

History and sociology are disciplines that examine human society from different vantage points and with different methods, but that benefit enormously from being studied together. History examines how societies have developed and changed over time, reading the past through evidence and argument. Sociology analyses the structures, processes, and patterns of social life in the present, using both quantitative and qualitative methods to understand inequality, identity, institutions, and social change.

Together, they equip you to understand both where social patterns come from and how they operate now.

At Queen's University Belfast, this three-year full-time programme equips you to identify historical and contemporary patterns of social change, divisions, diversity, and inequality. Historians in the department explain the modern world by tracing it back through the Roman Empire, the Middle Ages, the Renaissance, and the great revolutions of the modern era, across Europe, North America, Africa, and Asia. The sociology component develops your analytical tools for understanding structures of gender, race, class, and power in the present, asking how these divisions are reproduced and challenged.

Students are trusted to make choices and range widely across the combined curriculum from their first year, building an education that reflects their particular intellectual interests. With a typical entry tariff of 136 UCAS points, this is a competitive programme.

Graduates from history and sociology programmes are well placed across a range of careers. Social research, policy analysis, the civil service, journalism, education, the third sector, community organisations, international development, and academic research are all natural destinations. The combination of historical perspective and sociological method is particularly valuable in roles that require both understanding where things come from and engaging critically with how they work now.

Postgraduate study in sociology, history, social policy, or related fields provides a natural continuation.