Religion, Society and Culture
UCAS Code: V617
Bachelor of Arts (with Honours) - BA (Hons)
Entry requirements
A level
Specific subjects excluded for entry: General Studies and Critical Thinking. Information: Applicants taking Science A-levels that include a practical component will be required to take and pass this as a condition of entry. This refers only to English A Levels.
Access to HE Diploma
We require 60 credits with a minimum of 45 credits at level 3 (or equivalent). Applicants may be required to meet additional subject-specific requirements for particular courses at Durham. Please contact departments for further information.
Cambridge International Pre-U Certificate - Principal
International Baccalaureate Diploma Programme
General information on subjects/grades required for entry: Seventeen points (6, 6, 5) from Higher Level subjects required.
Leaving Certificate - Higher Level (Ireland) (first awarded in 2017)
Pearson BTEC Level 3 National Extended Diploma (first teaching from September 2016)
Scottish Advanced Higher
Scottish Higher
Departments will normally make offers based on Advanced Highers. In the absence of 3 Advanced Highers, where these are not offered by the applicant’s school, offers comprising of Advanced Highers and Highers or a number of Highers may be made on a case by case basis.
UCAS Tariff
We've calculated how many Ucas points you'll need for this course.
About this course
This degree will equip you with the skills to understand religion and its power to shape the human condition This degree is designed to develop an understanding of the centrality of religion to the functioning of societies past, present and future. You will engage with the comparative study of religion, especially with the significance of myth-, ritual- and meaning-making. This is complemented by more specialised modules that explore religious practice in relation to either particular religions (such as Islam, Judaism and Christianity), particular regions (such as Asia, Africa, and Europe), or particular transnational media (the internet, film and literature). You will engage with the role of religion in a wide range of contexts: including politics, literature, bioethics, and war. Students on this degree will benefit from the considerable strength that the Department has in the comparative study of religion, the social sciences and the study of religious texts/artefacts.
Graduates of the degree will be highly employable in a range of professions including the civil service, education, research and social work.
The degree enables you to understand better the world we live in, and to explore the forces that shape your own attitudes, hopes and fears. In turn, it will empower you to go out into the world to make a difference for the good.
**Year 1**
Lays the foundations that are needed for higher study, providing core understandings and skills for the exploration of religion and culture.
Two compulsory religious practice modules are taken in the first year, as follows: Islam Observed / Christianity in Context / at least two compulsory theory modules: Worldview, Faith and Identity AND God and the Good: Philosophy of Religion and Ethics AND/OR God and Evil / and one or two modules from a large list of electives offered by the Department of Theology and Religion and from the departments of Anthropology and Sociology. Examples of modules available in recent years include: People and Cultures / Societies in Transition / Conceptualising Society / Biblical Hebrew / New Testament Greek / Introduction to Christian Theology / Reading Biblical Texts. One of these optional modules may be taken in your second year.
**Year 2**
The second year builds upon the first allowing for deeper study of key themes, traditions and practices. Candidates have to choose at least three modules from a list of electives that may include, for example: Death, Ritual and Belief / Religion in Contemporary Britain / Atheism, Belief, and the Edge of Reason / Faith, Identity and Power in Latin America / Sacred India: Land, Politics and Identity / Topics in Christian Ethics / Myth and Meaning: The Structural Analysis of Mythology / Research Project and Colloquium in Theology and Religion / Science and Theology: Exploring the Interface / God and the Universe of Faiths.
They may choose to draw up to three modules from a further list of electives.
**Year 3**
In your final year, you will submit a double dissertation which allows you to explore in depth a topic of your choice which is of special interest to you. In the third year you will also take optional modules, selecting from a list of modules offered by the Department of Theology and Religion and from other departments. Examples of recent modules include: Anthropology of Religious Controversy / Religion and Film / Religious Diversity in African Context / Emotion and Identity in Religion / The Postmodern God
**Study Abroad**
Students admitted to the BA (Hons) Religion, Society and Culture are able to apply to transfer to the BA (Hons) Religion, Society and Culture (with Year Abroad) course.
Durham University has over 240 student exchange agreements across the world as part of our International Exchange programmes. Students apply for this opportunity during their first two years and (if successful) spend a year, between their second and third years at Durham in one of our overseas partner institutions.
Modules
For more information on the content of this course, including module details, please see our website.
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Theology and Religion
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See your living costsWhat students say
We've crunched the numbers to see if overall student satisfaction here is high, medium or low compared to students studying this subject(s) at other universities.
How do students rate their degree experience?
The stats below relate to the general subject area/s at this university, not this specific course. We show this where there isn’t enough data about the course, or where this is the most detailed info available to us.
Anthropology
Teaching and learning
Assessment and feedback
Resources and organisation
Student voice
Who studies this subject and how do they get on?
Most popular A-Levels studied (and grade achieved)
Sociology
Teaching and learning
Assessment and feedback
Resources and organisation
Student voice
Who studies this subject and how do they get on?
Most popular A-Levels studied (and grade achieved)
Theology and religious studies
Teaching and learning
Assessment and feedback
Resources and organisation
Student voice
Who studies this subject and how do they get on?
Most popular A-Levels studied (and grade achieved)
After graduation
The stats in this section relate to the general subject area/s at this university – not this specific course. We show this where there isn't enough data about the course, or where this is the most detailed info available to us.
Anthropology
What are graduates doing after six months?
This is what graduates told us they were doing (and earning), shortly after completing their course. We've crunched the numbers to show you if these immediate prospects are high, medium or low, compared to those studying this subject/s at other universities.
Top job areas of graduates
What do graduate employment figures really tell you?This is a pretty flexible degree and a good one if you want to keep your options open. Just over 1,250 graduates completed anthropology degrees last year, and they were well spread out across a whole range of jobs — many industries have jobs that can be done by anthropology graduates and unlike a lot of degrees, there aren't many jobs we can point to and say ‘graduates from this degree do that job’. Management, marketing, housing and recruitment jobs are the most popular, though, and many graduates go into the education or social care sectors. Graduates are also rather more likely than average to work in London, or to go overseas to work. This is quite a popular subject at postgraduate level, and if you want to go into research, you'll need to think about postgrad study - and it's one of the few where numbers are on the up at the moment.
Sociology
What are graduates doing after six months?
This is what graduates told us they were doing (and earning), shortly after completing their course. We've crunched the numbers to show you if these immediate prospects are high, medium or low, compared to those studying this subject/s at other universities.
Top job areas of graduates
What do graduate employment figures really tell you?We have quite a lot of sociology graduates, although numbers fell last year. But graduates still do pretty well. Most sociology graduates go straight into work when they complete their degrees, and a lot of graduates go into jobs in social professions such as recruitment, education, community and youth work, and housing. An important option for a sociology graduate is social work - and we're short of people willing to take this challenging but rewarding career. Sociology is a flexible degree and you can find graduates from the subject in pretty much every reasonable job — obviously, you don't find many doctors or engineers, but you do find them in finance, the media, healthcare, marketing and even IT. Sociology graduates taking further study often branch out into other qualifications, like teaching, law, psychology, HR and even maths, so don’t think a sociology degree restricts you to just one set of options.
Theology and religious studies
What are graduates doing after six months?
This is what graduates told us they were doing (and earning), shortly after completing their course. We've crunched the numbers to show you if these immediate prospects are high, medium or low, compared to those studying this subject/s at other universities.
Top job areas of graduates
What do graduate employment figures really tell you?Theology can actually be a very vocational subject —by far the most common move for theology graduates is to go into the clergy and at the moment we have a serious shortage of people willing to go into what is one of the oldest graduate careers. If you want to study theology but don't want to follow a religious career, then there are plenty of options available. 2015 graduates went into all sorts of jobs requiring a degree, from education and community work, to marketing, HR and financial analysis. Postgraduate study is also popular — a lot of theology graduates train as teachers, or go into Masters or even doctoral study - where philosophy and law are very popular postgraduate subjects of study.
What about your long term prospects?
Looking further ahead, below is a rough guide for what graduates went on to earn.
Social anthropology
The graph shows median earnings of graduates who achieved a degree in this subject area one, three and five years after graduating from here.
£20k
£26k
£28k
Note: this data only looks at employees (and not those who are self-employed or also studying) and covers a broad sample of graduates and the various paths they've taken, which might not always be a direct result of their degree.
Sociology
The graph shows median earnings of graduates who achieved a degree in this subject area one, three and five years after graduating from here.
£20k
£26k
£28k
Note: this data only looks at employees (and not those who are self-employed or also studying) and covers a broad sample of graduates and the various paths they've taken, which might not always be a direct result of their degree.
Theology and religious studies
The graph shows median earnings of graduates who achieved a degree in this subject area one, three and five years after graduating from here.
£21k
£29k
£35k
Note: this data only looks at employees (and not those who are self-employed or also studying) and covers a broad sample of graduates and the various paths they've taken, which might not always be a direct result of their degree.
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Post-six month graduation stats:
This is from the Destinations of Leavers from Higher Education Survey, based on responses from graduates who studied the same subject area here.
It offers a snapshot of what grads went on to do six months later, what they were earning on average, and whether they felt their degree helped them obtain a 'graduate role'. We calculate a mean rating to indicate if this is high, medium or low compared to other universities.
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Graduate field commentary:
The Higher Education Careers Services Unit have provided some further context for all graduates in this subject area, including details that numbers alone might not show
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The Longitudinal Educational Outcomes dataset combines HRMC earnings data with student records from the Higher Education Statistics Agency.
While there are lots of factors at play when it comes to your future earnings, use this as a rough timeline of what graduates in this subject area were earning on average one, three and five years later. Can you see a steady increase in salary, or did grads need some experience under their belt before seeing a nice bump up in their pay packet?
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