Master's Programme in Sociology with a focus on Research and Critical Studies

General Information

Here you will find basic information about the Master's Programme in Sociology, which starts in the autumn semester of 2024. In the programme syllabus, which you can search for here, you can see, among other things, the programme's purpose, overall learning outcomes and overall structure, but this website provides some concrete information.

The programme consists of a number of different courses. Each course has a course area on Mid Sweden University's learning platform Moodle. You will have access to the courses' Moodle pages a few days before each course starts, provided that you are registered. Information about registration for courses can be found here.

Structure of the programme

The programme is entirely distance learning and it is assumed that you actively participate in the discussions at the seminars and the other learning opportunities that are included. You must therefore have a working webcam, microphone and internet connection.

The studies in the program are full-time, so you are expected to be able to spend 40 hours per week studying. Most of the work will be self-study, i.e. reading course literature, preparing for seminars and various writing assignments. The frequency of seminars and other scheduled occasions may vary between the different courses, but usually it will be one to two seminars (of about two hours) per week. In some cases, it is possible to miss compulsory learning sessions if it is due to e.g. illness, but other studies or work are not valid reasons for absence. Absence from compulsory seminars entails a compensatory assignment – the forms of this are determined by the respective course coordinator (e.g. it may be extra seminar sessions or writing assignments). 

Sociology as a scientific discipline is not isolated from other subjects, on the contrary, there are many overlapping fields across subject boundaries and this is also something that permeates the programme. Several of the courses are taken together with the subjects of literature and history. In some courses, you who study programmes will also study together with people who take the courses as freestanding courses.

The course selection looks like this:

Courses autumn semester 2024 (programme semester 1):

Week 36–40: History AV, Theory of Science (7.5 credits, together with Comparative Literature and History)

Week 41–45: Comparative Literature MA, Archives and Media through the Ages (7.5 credits, together with Comparative Literature and History)

Week 46–50: Sociology MA, Power, Time and Place (7.5 credits, sociology only)

Week 51–03: Choose 1st of the following
History AV, Ethnicity and Nationality in the Mid-Nordic Region in a Historical Perspective, 7.5 credits
Comparative Literature MA, History of Subjectivity, 7.5 credits
You choose a course yourself, preliminarily from 2 Dec 2024 in Ladok.

Courses spring semester 2025 (semester 2):
Week 04–13: Sociology MA, Sociological Ethnography, (15 credits only sociology)
Week 14–23: Sociology MA, Degree project, (15 credits only sociology)

Things to think about before the start of studies

Be out in good time to acquire the course literature! See the welcome letter for the first course, Philosophy of Science, where you will find information about what to study in the first week.

We start with a program introduction on Monday 2 September at 13.15–15.00. The meeting is initially common to history, literary studies and sociology. After a while, the large group is divided into subject-specific groups, where we talk about things that are specific to each subject.
Zoom link: https://miun-se.zoom.us/j/65252453812?pwd=eWVFMi9KNGsxZWhzcVRUbnBHcjVzQT09
The link is also in the welcome letter for the program.

Contact

Programme coordinator: Karin Jarnkvist

Education Officer: Maria Görlin

Questions that specifically concern the individual courses are primarily directed to the respective course coordinators. For the courses autumn 2024, the following course coordinators have been decided:

• History MA, Theory of Science 7.5 credits: Sven Anders Johansson
• Comparative Literature MA, Archives and Media through the Ages 7.5 credits: Samuel Edquist
• Sociology of, Power, Time and Place 7.5 credits: Karin Jarnkvist
• History of AV, Ethnicity and Nationality in the Middle Nordic Region in a Historical Perspective 7.5 credits: Samuel Edquist
• Comparative Literature MA, History of Subjectivity, 7.5 credits: Sven Anders Johansson

A programme council is being formed, with representatives from the master's programmes in history, literature and sociology. The programme council discusses and decides on issues that are common to the three programmes.