Sociology Honours Degree

Students doing an Honours degree full-time must complete their degree within twelve months. They can take either five courses or four courses plus a supervised Long Paper during that period. Note admission to Honours Long Essay requires permission from the Postgraduate Coordinator, and normally requires an average of 70% in third year studies,

Students doing the Honours degree part-time are expected to complete the degree over two years. They should take one or two courses in each semester.

Students must choose one of three fields of study:

• General Sociology,
• Industrial/Economic Sociology
• Development Sociology

Students may opt to take four courses plus research essay instead of five courses. This means that in addition to the four courses, you will be writing a research report under the supervision of a staff member. You must consult the postgraduate coordinator for permission if you wish to pursue this route.

The department reserves the right to stipulate specific courses - and, where necessary, extra courses - for any Honours student deemed to have inadequate background.

Students with Honours level degrees, who are asked to enter our programme at the Honours level, may be given credit for some of the courses they took before entering the programme.

Most courses are designated as 4000/7000 (previously 400/500), referring respectively to Honours and MA levels. These courses are open to both Honours and MA students, though different expectations and assessment criteria are applied to each level.

Generally, for each course 50% of the mark is allocated to year work (usually consisting of tests, written assignments and long essays), and 50% to the exams. The overall Honours mark is composed of the course marks, each of which with equal weight of 20% (this includes the Honours dissertation where applicable).

Admission Criteria

Admission into Honors for a Wits student requires an average in your Sociology major (or cognate discipline) of not less than 68%. We may, on a case by case basis, consider students with a mark between 65% and 67%, and hold interviews. For admission into a Masters by coursework from students who studied Honours at Wits, we require marks of 70% upwards, although we may consider students with marks of 68% plus. For MA by Dissertation and PhD study for a Wits graduate, no candidates with marks below 70% will be considered.

For students from other universities, we pay attention to the a) institution of study b) the fields of study and c) work experience, as applicable. We apply the same high standards of admission criteria, especially in terms of marks. As a rule we will not admit candidates without an adequate background in Sociology or a cognate discipline, nor will we admit students whose marks are not equivalent to those required of Wits graduates.

We reserve the right to insist upon postgraduate students from outside Wits Sociology attending additional or specified courses as a condition of admission, including for PhD students.

Lecturers reserve the right to deny admission to any course to any student where the student can reasonably be shown not to be prepared to cope with the course.

Compulsory Modules

SOCL4002 Advanced Social Research
Compulsory for all

The course will examine the foundations of social research, and its underlying assumptions and methodologies. It will combine theoretical discussions with the practical application of various research tools. Students will be expected to gain an understanding of theoretical issues together with an ability to choose and use different methods and research designs in an applied context. By the end of the course successful students would have built their capacity to design and execute research in academic and applied settings.

SOCL4030 Social Transitions
Compulsory for all

The course examines the concept of social transition through close study of a number of key texts in historically-based sociology. The central question is; can we give a coherent account of where the social formation of capitalist modernity came from and where it is going?

SOCL4014 Economic Sociology: Institutions, Capatalism and Markets
Compulsory for Industrial / Economic Sociology

This course will introduce students to the main paradigms that shape modern economic policy debates and positions. Not an economics course, it will, nonetheless, provide post-graduate students in the social sciences with a solid grounding in economic and social theory in a manner that will enable effective policy advocacy and critique. Sophisticated theoretical discussion, plus detailed reading, plus policy analysis, forms the core of the course, which is designed to give students an in-depth understanding of the capitalist system, and its limitations. This course does not require any prior knowledge of economics or economic theory.

SOCL4009 Development as Ideology and Practice
Compulsory for Development Sociology

What is ''development''? The course will explore the different meanings of the term, review the theoretical debates on ''development,'' and examine elements of the policy and practice of ''development.''

Additional Modules

In addition to the courses that are compulsory for your path, you may take any other course offered at the Honours level (regardless of whether or not it is compulsory for another path). You may also take one course from outside the department, but this requires formal permission from the postgraduate coordinator.

VIEW ALL POSTGRADUATE MODULES