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PGDip Social Anthropology

Different course options

Full time | The University of Manchester | 9 months | 23-SEP-24

Study mode

Full time

Duration

9 months

Start date

23-SEP-24

Key information
DATA SOURCE : IDP Connect

Qualification type

Postgraduate Diploma

Subject areas

Social Anthropology

Course type

Taught

Course Summary

Course description

The objective of this course is to communicate an anthropologically-informed understanding of social life in both Western and non-Western societies. By confronting you with the remarkable diversity of human social and cultural experience, our aim is to encourage you to question taken-for-granted assumptions and to view the world from a new perspective.

Through a set of core course units, comprising about a third of coursework credits, you are provided with a comprehensive grounding in classical as well as contemporary debates in social anthropology and are introduced to the distinctive research methods and ethical positions associated with the discipline. You can select units of study from a good number of elective modules offered by staff working at the forward edge of their fields of study, and complete augment these by choosing from a broad range of units offered around the Faculty of Humanities.

Through these options, you apply the social anthropological theories and methods learnt on the core units to particular substantive themes and topics.

Diploma students complete their coursework in May and formally graduate in July. Over the summer holidays, MA students carry out research for a 15,000 word dissertation that is submitted in September; normally graduating in December.

Teaching and learning

You will take four 15-credit core course units to a total of 60 credits, including Key Approaches to Social Anthropology, Ethnography Reading Seminar, Contemporary Debates, and Image Text and Fieldwork, and a selection of optional units that you choose shortly after arrival.

You must first check the schedule of the compulsory units and then select your optional units to suit your requirements.

Updated timetable information will be available from mid-August and you will have the opportunity to discuss your unit choices during induction week with your course director.

Coursework and assessment

Most units are assessed by means of an extended assessment essay. Typically, for 15 credit units, these will be 4000 words, whilst for 30 credit courses, they are normally 6000 words.

Certain options involving practical instruction in research methods, audio-visual media or museum display may also be assessed by means of presentations and/or portfolios of practical work. In addition, all MA students are required to write a 15,000 word dissertation.

Career opportunities

The MA Social Anthropology course trains you in a broad range of transferable skills that are useful in many walks of life, including assessing basic research reports, effective essay-writing, oral presentational skills in seminars and other contexts, basic computing skills, using the internet as a research tool and conducting bibliographic research.

Past graduates have gone on to many different careers, both inside and outside of academic life. As it is a 'conversion' course aimed at those who want to explore anthropology after undergraduate studies in another field, or at least within a different anthropological tradition, it often represents a major change of career direction, opening up a wide range of different possibilities.

Modules

This course is designed to provide an in-depth understanding of the development of theoretical approaches and contemporary debates in social anthropology. Its objective is to give students an opportunity to think at a more advanced level about a range of problems relating to the acquisition, production, communication and uses of anthropological knowledge as well as its substantive content and relevance to the world in which we now live. Students will engage with debates concerning anthropological description and its political, historical, philosophical precedents and implications, and its emergence through particular relations and particular discourses.

Tuition fees

UK fees
Course fees for UK students

For this course (per year)

£9,333

International fees
Course fees for EU and international students

For this course (per year)

£17,333

Entry requirements

We require a UK bachelor's degree with a First or Upper Second classification or the overseas equivalent, in any discipline for entry to our MA programme. We require a UK bachelor's degree with a Lower-Second classification or the overseas equivalent, in any discipline for entry to our Postgraduate Diploma. When assessing your academic record we consider your degree subject, grades you have achieved and the standing of the institution where you studied your qualification.