Master of Arts in Social Research

at Manchester Metropolitan University United Kingdom

Whether you want to attract visitors to Blackpool or manage hotel staff in Barbados, tourism is full of exciting opportunities. And in the aftermath of the global pandemic, the sector is becoming more innovative than ever.

With input from leading organisations like ABTA, Qantas, Visit Manchester and TUI, we’ve developed a range of modules directly relevant to a career in the tourism industry. You’ll explore key questions like what makes an attractive destination? How can marketing be applied in different markets? Which management strategies get the best out of employees? And you’ll put your ideas into practice, working on real world briefs for real organisations.

Develop skills for life
Tourism is big business. To succeed in this competitive market, organisations need managers with strong business acumen and the creative flair to come up with innovative ideas. Here at Manchester Met, we’ll help you develop both.

You’ll build essential skills like analysing financial statements and planning budgets. You’ll study operational models, learn the theories behind human resource management, and can even add a new language to your repertoire. Then, to turn you from a competent manager to a brilliant one, we’ll help you think creatively, strategically and globally. You’ll discover how to apply your broad set of skills to any challenge your future business or employer might face.

Uncover inside knowledge
The course content covers a huge range of topics – but it’s the teaching team that will bring it to life. They’ll use their contacts, their latest research and their experiences working in the industry to inform their teaching. You’ll always be up to date with the latest insights, whether it’s new theories of tourist behaviours, or how businesses stayed agile throughout the coronavirus pandemic.

With our links to top employers and leading organisations, you’ll have plenty of opportunities to expand your network through work experience or special events like guest lectures. And with the option of studying abroad or spending a year on placement, you can expand your horizons even further.

The way we communicate with, reach and engage customers has changed dramatically in the digital age. As such, opportunities for careers in digital marketing are growing all over the world.

Accredited by the Institute of Data and Marketing, this is a specialist course designed to develop your knowledge and skillset in evidence-based, applied digital marketing strategy and campaign planning. We welcome students from all over the world, who have a passion for digital and want to develop their professional practice and enhance their marketing career prospects.

You’ll develop your knowledge and skills through a mix of collaborative teaching and group workshops with industry-skilled, research-active academics, live client briefs and specialist guest lectures.

The latest insights from industry
This course is designed around the latest advancements in the digital environment with units that allow you to develop specialist digital marketing skills, highly sought after by employers.

Taught by experienced digital experts, you’ll gain unique insights and the vital skills needed to succeed in this rapidly expanding sector.

A world of opportunity
Outside the course, our internship and networking opportunities will offer you the chance to put your skills to the test and to make valuable contacts.

Whatever your preferred career direction, in-house, agency or freelance, studying with us will help you find your passion and ensure you have the knowledge and skills to succeed as a strategic digital marketer.

Optional internship year

If you choose to take the optional one-year internship, you’ll do so once you have successfully completed your taught units. The internship takes place over 36-48 weeks – you will be supported by our Placement Office, who have extensive contacts with the industry and over 25 years of experience of helping students to find placements.

The Placement Office advertise a variety of opportunities, support and advise on the application and recruitment process and continue to support you whilst you are away from the University.

Based at the Manchester Metropolitan University Q-Step Centre in the Department of Sociology, this MSc approaches the study of quantitative methods in an innovative way. Right now, there is a demand for graduates with quantitative skills, and it is a demand our students are equipped to meet. Students studying on this MSc will be ready to pursue a career involving quantitative research skills within a diverse range of organisations. Students will also be prepared for doctoral study, which requires advanced skills on quantitative methods recognised by the Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC) and other research councils.

The course focuses on the development and application of key quantitative methods and analytical techniques. It focuses on the use of quantitative methods within real-world contexts and a key aim is to develop graduates' career-ready skills in this field.

Manchester Met’s Q-Step Centre is recognised as a centre for excellence in the teaching and training of quantitative methods, with a national and global reputation for its pedagogy. It has innovative research partnerships with a range of local organisations, and the community research projects run by the centre look to build on current knowledge to develop new strategies, aimed at empowering and transforming communities.  You will be taught by research-active academics from Q-Step and other multidisciplinary research centres including Policy Evaluation and Research Unit (PERU), Manchester Centre for Youth Studies, Big Data Centre in Sociology Department and this real-world research feeds directly into what they will be taught. The international research experience of the centre is embedded into the course content and delivery of the course is enhanced by incorporating cross-comparative survey data in lab activities and assessments. You will also have the opportunity to do your dissertation in collaboration with projects being carried out with these centres' international research partners. You will also be exposed to a variety of different perspectives and views within the discipline through lectures, seminars, talks and workshops delivered or co-delivered by international experts.

Placement options

• Placement-based dissertation, in which you will produce a piece of research on behalf of one of our partner organisations. We will help your source your placement.
• We work with over 25 partners across Greater Manchester to provide students with placements across diverse sectors.

There are few aspects of business more fundamental than people: they’re a vital ingredient of any organisation. It’s down to the HR professionals to deal with a vast range of business-critical issues, shaping workplace policies like redundancy, maternity leave and rewards, and supporting strategic decisions on areas like recruitment.

The best HR professionals have an in-depth understanding of how organisations operate and what the business objectives are – helping them advise employees and partner with the business.

We’ll help you explore the latest thinking in the subject, starting with first principles of managing people, analysing information and understanding behaviour. From there, you’ll expand into topics like managing across cultures and leading change. And, in your final year, you’ll also be able to pick your own subject as a research topic.

By the time you graduate, you won’t just have extensive knowledge of the role, you’ll also have a deeper understanding of the business and legislative landscape. In other words, you’ll leave ready to start your career in the world of HR.

Study Abroad

Instead of a placement, you'll have the opportunity to spend up to a year overseas, studying with one of our partner institutions across Europe, or beyond. Go abroad in the third year of your degree, and you’ll not only learn about other cultures, improve your language skills and discover knowledge of another country’s cultures and traditions can take you far in a range of careers. And, by going abroad you’ll also demonstrate the kind of independent spirit and adaptability that many employers want.

Marketing is a business function with the power to shape everything from sales and customer service to product development and brand loyalty. The best marketers see the big picture – when they look at the business landscape, they identify the opportunities to communicate and influence audiences, and spot the threats that could damage their brands. This marketing degree is all about exploring that landscape, taking those opportunities and avoiding those threats.

You’ll look at different media and methods of communication, study how to analyse and segment audiences, and discover how to craft and deliver the right message at the right time. To start with, you’ll learn about marketing fundamentals, but you’ll also have the flexibility to choose units that interest you most as you progress. By the time you leave us, you’ll not only understand the theory behind effective marketing – you’ll also have a range of practical, professional skills.

Above all, you’ll be ready for a career in marketing – following in the footsteps of graduates from this course now working in advertising, account management, media planning, public relations, event management and more.

Study Abroad

Instead of a placement, you’ll have the opportunity to spend up to a year overseas, studying with one of our partner institutions across Europe, or beyond. Go abroad in the third year of your degree, and you’ll not only learn about other cultures, improve your language skills and discover more about yourself – you’ll also boost your career prospects.

Having first-hand knowledge of another country’s cultures and traditions can take you far in a range of careers. And, by going abroad you’ll also demonstrate the kind of independent spirit and adaptability that many employers want.

This course is at the forefront of production design and manufacturing practices and brings together students from creative and technical backgrounds, to foster original approaches to product design for manufacture. It supports you to explore and develop personal design methodologies and philosophies, and locate these within a deep understanding of historical, contemporary and future design practices, and wider social and cultural contexts.

You will undertake core units, delivered by production design specialists, consisting of design theory and practice lectures, material and manufacturing workshops, group seminars, individual tutorials, live external projects, and research study trips. Practical design development is supported by extensive hand and machine workshops for wood, metal, ceramics, glass and plastics, and digital workshops for laser cutting and large scale CNC routing.

Optional units facilitate innovative cross-disciplinary opportunities, supporting the development of collaborative working with students from within the material making and manufacturing cluster of MA/MSc/MFA Craft and MA/MSc/MFA Textile, and across the wider postgraduate design community. There are cross-faculty options to study within the faculty of “Science and Engineering”, acquiring advanced 3D CAD skills for industrial production, and utilising the latest advanced 3D printing processes. The Manchester Metropolitan Business School option addresses commercial aspects of design, enabling students to locate their ambitions within a defined financial model.

You will able to explore and challenge all aspects of product design, embracing opportunities for innovation across markets and production levels, from one-off making and batch fabrication, to flexible digital manufacture and high volume industrial production.

Explore inequalities in childhood and the factors that can nurture or disrupt child development. Analyse the critical frameworks for understanding relationships such as attachment theory. Critically examine the evidence base and use of practices in children’s services.

Designed for people with an interest in working in children’s services and education facilities, this course will encourage you to explore how to promote positive mental health for young people across a variety of settings.

You’ll develop your practical psychological skills in assessment, formulation and intervention planning, as well as your awareness of yourself as a practitioner.

Some of the topics you’ll study include psychological theories (such as Bowlby’s attachment theory) and how developmental, societal and environmental challenges influence all aspects of young people’s lives. You’ll also learn how to identify and nurture protective factors.

You’ll have a series of guest lectures throughout this course, especially throughout specialist units, to help you understand how the theory you learn in the classroom applies to the practice setting.

Guest lectures include experienced clinical and educational psychologists who contribute to a number of training programs, as well as specialist speakers with a focus on trauma, creative therapeutic approaches and the development of novel trauma-informed services to help you explore career options.

For this course, you’ll usually complete a service-based dissertation that informs service development or specific interventions for children, young people or families.

Psychology is the science of human behaviour and mind. It is concerned with individual psychological processes and the social context of how we think and interact with the world around us. Forensic psychology applies these processes and knowledge to legal domains, helping shape how the police, courts, prisons and probation services understand and react to victims, witnesses and offenders.

Forensic psychology practitioners assess and work with offenders, work with victims and witnesses to crime, and give evidence in court. They might carry out risk assessments on offenders with mental health issues, work with children with anti-social behaviour or create treatment plans to help rehabilitate offenders.

Our course covers all core elements of psychological study as required by the British Psychological Society (BPS), from lifespan development, neuropsychology, and research methods, to social, critical and abnormal psychology. As well as developing a thorough understanding of key psychological research, theory and principles, you’ll also explore a wide range of topics focusing on theories of crime, victimisation and psychology in legal contexts; including offender behaviour, eyewitness testimony, jury decision-making, police investigations, and the assessment and treatment of offenders.

The Combined Honours program offers you an opportunity to study two subjects at degree level.

English:
English explores the role of writing in defining and transforming human experience. Creative writing is a contemporary art practice which expresses that experience.

At the Manchester campus, the English department has access to a community of internationally renowned writers and critics through the Manchester Writing School, one of the most successful of its kind in the UK. It boasts over 95 published graduates and its Creative Director is Carol Ann Duffy DBE (Poet Laureate 2009-2019).

Against this backdrop you will examine major periods and forms of literature, learning to analyze literary and media texts by drawing on wider humanities disciplines. Creative writing students will develop the craft of writing, learning to read as a writer and collaborate with artists across the creative spectrum. Both approaches develop the necessary skills in critical thinking and communication that are of value to graduates entering a wide array of career paths or establishing practice.

French:
Proficiency in modern languages can give you the competitive edge in the global jobs market. In both the private and public sectors, there is demand for professionals with strong language skills who can work in culturally diverse environments. Studying French at Manchester Metropolitan University will give you the opportunity to learn from native speakers. Our languages department have created their own multicultural community, including British, exchange and international students, along with foreign language assistants, allowing you to be absorbed into the everyday use of your chosen language.

The University has been providing professional language courses for more than 30 years and our staff are nationally, and in many cases internationally, recognized experts in their field. Our strong local, national and global links will help to enhance your study and future employment opportunities.

Placement options
If you take French as a major or equal subject you will spend your third year in France and we will assist you in choosing from a wide choice of partner universities where you can study.

Politics is the study of power and how power operates in all its forms: through individuals, structures, internationally and domestically. Its principal focus is on power relations among individuals, social groups and nations. Philosophers specialise in critically making sense of ourselves and everything around us. Their currency is rigorous argumentation about subjects from consciousness to the nature of power relations themselves.

The Joint Honours degree will provide you with the skills to explore the philosophical and political landscape of human consciousness throughout time and place. You will gain a critically informed grasp of political and current affairs, seeing beyond the news headlines to the real issues of politics. By studying this course, you will be strongly equipped to understand ideologies and be in a better position to comment upon and understand what the politicians are really saying.

A wide variety of options means that you can pursue your own interests - with things becoming increasingly flexible as you progress through the course. We also offer opportunities to learn with a language from your second year of study. With practical skills training, including advanced analytical approaches, as well as possible opportunities to study abroad - with all the experience that brings - this degree opens doors to a range of interesting and rewarding career possibilities and provides the skills to progress to higher research programs.

Placement options

You may have the chance to spend a year getting a taste of professional life. It is an opportunity to develop core skills and explore how this course can relate to the graduate world, and it shows employers that you’re ready to get to work.

You are free to choose placement opportunities from a wide range of roles both in the UK and abroad. Students choosing this option are supported by a dedicated placement team who provide links to employers through presentations, events, and fairs, and provide a specialist program of guidance on recruitment procedures including CV and interview preparation, as well as work readiness and working overseas.