sociology phd cambridge

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PhD in Sociology

University of cambridge, different course options.

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Course Summary

Tuition fees, entry requirements, similar courses at different universities, key information data source : idp connect, qualification type.

PhD/DPhil - Doctor of Philosophy

Subject areas

Course type.

The PhD in Sociology offers a world-class programme of a research study in sociology supervised by world-renowned experts in their fields.

The course aims to provide all students with the skills they need to be professional researchers and academics. There is an organised programme of courses for first-year PhD students, which has three major components: Basic academic and research skills, designed to provide the essential tools of academic work. The core training programme, which covers issues of social science research in general; Issues of research specific to particular disciplines or areas of interest, and research design, including the integration of methodological, theoretical and substantive issues.

You will be expected to participate fully in the core training programme, and in the departmental seminar series. At the beginning of your third term, your progress is examined on the basis of a 10,000-word piece of written work to determine whether you can proceed to a full programme of PhD research.

Part-time PhD studies are possible for home/EU students only. Part-time applicants must contact a potential supervisor before applying.

UK fees Course fees for UK students

For this course (per year)

International fees Course fees for EU and international students

Applicants for this course should have achieved a UK Masters (Merit).

MA in Criminal Justice and Crime Control

University of hull, phd sociology and anthropology and gender studies, phd sociology, phd criminology, phd sociology and social anthropology.

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We recommend all students begin by reading their respective handbooks (MPhil or PhD), which provide a useful overview of each programme.

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Course information for each programme can be found on their respective moodle pages. These pages contain the relevant course handbook, with dates for submission of work, format of work, Department and Faculty administration, as well as submission forms and example submissions for essays and reports.

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Postgraduate Reps

The postgraduate reps are appointed to represent their cohort to the postgraduate education committee (PEC) as well as supporting community building activities within their cohort. This year's postgraduate reps are Simone Schneider and Hannah Peterson (PhD), Yuke Huang and Anna Rimkus (MPhil).

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We encourage all postgraduate students to download and install the Microsoft Teams app, which you can use to create online study groups as well as it being the recommended platform for supervisions. You can read our Teams Guide for Students for information about installing and using Teams.

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The Department of Sociology offices are located in Free School Lane in the centre of Cambridge.  

For the latest University guidance on travelling abroad for research purposes, please visit the University website . For details on the ethical approval process at the department please visit our research website .

“ Bridging the Gap from Research to Practice ” is a new online programme for Masters and PhD students to develop a range of personal and professional skills to help build their research profile. The programme is provided by the School of the Humanities and Social Sciences (SHSS), and is just one of a range of training programmes on offer at the University.

Hardship Funding

Postgraduate students who are financially in need due to Covid-19, where costs do not relate to immediate one-off costs, may apply to the PG Hardship Fund for assistance. The awards are intended to support students who would otherwise be unable to continue or complete their research or study, and whose financial hardship has occured unexpectedly during the course.

The Department of Sociology's  Sociology Seminar Series  take place in person and on-line during Michaelmas and Lent terms.  Our research groups  also run events and meetings throughout the year. Events are often recorded and recordings can be found here.

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For more updates, please follow the Department on Twitter and Facebook , you may also want to join the Sociology PhD Facebook group . There is also an expanding collection of videos of Sociology events on the Department's YouTube Channel .

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From Moodle, iDiscover and SpaceFinder to research methods training programmes and the Skills Portal, there are a variety of useful resources available to assist with your studies.

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Department of Sociology

Applications for admission to the PhD program in Fall 2025 are due December 1, 2024. We do not accept applications at any other time.

Please be advised: In the interest of treating all applicants equally, the Sociology Department at Harvard University has a policy of not scheduling meetings between faculty and prospective doctoral students until admissions decisions have been made.

Harvard Griffin GSAS does not discriminate against applicants or students on the basis of race, color, national origin, ancestry or any other protected classification.

Please note, Harvard Sociology continues to require GRE scores for application review. Our application process as described on the website is accurate and reflects any COVID-related changes. 

GSAS does not accept scores from the TOEFL ITP Plus examination. This is because the TOEFL ITP Plus does not provide a robust assessment of the candidate’s proficiency in spoken English, which is one of the most critical components of our English proficiency requirement. Applicants unable to take the TOEFL IBT, IELTS or IELTS indicator exams may apply without these scores, and if programs recommend these applicants for admission, their admission will be provisional until they provide scores from one of the accepted tests that demonstrate the required level of English proficiency.

The following materials are required for application to the program. All materials must be submitted electronically. 

• Application
• Statement of Purpose
• Personal Statement
• Transcripts
• Letters of Recommendation
• Writing Sample
• TOEFL Scores (for International applicants only; see note above)
• CV or Resume
• Application Fee

Visit the Harvard Kenneth C. Griffin Graduate School of Arts and Sciences  for all detailed application information, deadlines, and forms.

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Office Hours (Fall 2023) Monday, 10:00 a.m.-6:00 p.m. (remote) Tuesday, 10:00 a.m.-6:00 p.m. (on campus) Wednesday, 10:00 a.m.-6:00 p.m. (on campus) Thursday, 10:00 a.m.-6:00 p.m. (remote) Friday, 10:00 a.m.-6:00 p.m. (remote)

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Director  David Pedulla

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5 AI Ethics Concerns the Experts Are Debating

Just as social media exploded on the scene in the 2010s, artificial intelligence (AI) is having its moment. Decision-making algorithms have gone from science labs and sci-fi movies to everyday use in our homes — recommending movies, summarizing documents, and more. This technology comes with many benefits but raises many ethical concerns as well.

“AI systems are value-laden because they're human creations,” says  Justin Biddle , the director of Georgia Tech’s Ethics, Technology, and Human Interaction Center (ETHICx) and an associate professor in Georgia Tech's  School of Public Policy , where he teaches a course on AI ethics and policy. He specializes in the ethics of emerging technology and collaborates with scientists and engineers at Georgia Tech to design ethical AI systems.

“Humans generate, design, develop, distribute, and monitor AI systems. Human decisions are impactful throughout the AI development life cycle, and those decisions, reflecting the developers’ values, impact the performance of AI systems in a significant way,” he says.

For example, Biddle explains, AI systems can recommend whether or not someone is admitted to a university, hired for a job, or approved for a loan, and police departments use the technology to make decisions about how they should distribute officers and other resources. 

“These are incredibly consequential decisions that have, in some cases, lifelong impacts on people,” Biddle says. “So the stakes are very high.”

Biddle shared five of the most pressing AI ethics concerns the experts are debating today and the first steps we can take to address them.

1. AI and injustice

“How can we create AI systems that are just and equitable? Many AI systems are machine learning systems that are trained on data. If the data reflects historical biases or injustices, then the systems that are trained on these data will do the same. There are significant concerns about disparate impacts on historically marginalized groups by AI systems because of the data they're trained on. 

“For example, Amazon developed, implemented, and subsequently abandoned a hiring algorithm because they found that it was biased against women. The data they used to train the algorithm consisted of resumes submitted to Amazon, which were disproportionately from men. The problem of biased training data leading to biased AI systems is one of the most pressing AI ethics concerns.”

2. AI and human freedom and autonomy

“How can we develop and implement AI systems that promote human freedom and autonomy rather than impede it? AI can be used to influence human behavior, sometimes in ways that are imperceptible and ethically problematic.  

“AI systems have been used to influence voter behavior, as we saw in the  Cambridge Analytica scandal and in the proliferation of deep fakes in political campaigning. AI systems can be used to influence workers to work longer hours, for example by nudging rideshare drivers to drive longer. Additionally, the data used to train AI systems are sometimes collected without informed consent, raising concerns about privacy and data protection.  

“AI systems should promote the freedom and autonomy of all human beings, not just those who have the power to develop and profit from AI. How to achieve this goal is a challenging problem.”

3. AI and labor disruption

“How can we develop and deploy AI systems that create opportunities for meaningful work and well-paying jobs rather than contributing to technological unemployment? And how can we facilitate equitable access to those jobs?  

“There is no question that AI is disrupting labor markets, impacting available jobs and required skills. It is also clear that AI is disrupting many different kinds of work — it is not just jobs involving routine skills that are being affected, but also creative work. What is less clear is what the nature of these disruptions will be, who will benefit, and who will be harmed.  

“Given that so many workers will be affected — in many different sectors and at many different levels — it is crucial that processes for developing and deploying AI systems are inclusive and involve the participation of those likely to be affected. How this should be done remains an important and open question.”  

4. AI and explainability

“Given that many AI systems make decisions or recommendations that can be life-changing for those impacted, it is important that those decisions be explainable, interpretable, and easily communicated to those who are thus affected. There are challenging technical questions surrounding the creation of explainable AI — and there are also challenging societal questions surrounding the extent to which we should allow unexplainable AI systems to affect people’s lives.  

“The European Union’s General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) has attempted to curb the impacts of unexplainable AI. For example, if someone is denied a loan based on an AI recommendation, they should have recourse under this regulation to an explanation of why their application was rejected. Whether a regulation like this should be adopted in the United States is an important societal question, and addressing this question well requires expertise from relevant technical and social scientific fields, as well as from affected publics.”

5. AI and existential risk 

“The possibility of superintelligent AI is the subject of much discussion — in films, fiction, popular media, and academia. Some prominent AI developers have recently raised concerns about this, even suggesting that artificial general intelligence could lead to the extinction of humanity. Whether these fears are realistic — and whether we should be focusing on them over other concerns — is hotly debated.  

“Many think that these fears are more science fiction than reality and that a focus on them will distract from the ways in which AI systems are actually putting people at risk today. In particular, a focus on such fears could distract from how AI systems are currently exacerbating existing inequalities.  

“Others — perhaps impressed with the achievements of large language models such as ChatGPT — believe that artificial general intelligence is on the horizon and that existential risks need to be taken seriously now. For them, there are real and pressing concerns about superintelligence and AI becoming smarter and more powerful than we are.” 

What can we do to address these concerns?

In Biddle’s class, students discuss all of these concerns and more. AI is so pervasive now that understanding it is a form of general literacy, he says, and he hopes his students will help shape much-needed AI policy in coming years, both in the United States and abroad. 

“We need to be making decisions about what kinds of policies we want at the federal level,” Biddle says. 

“The European Union has moved quickly, implementing the GDPR, which regulates data processing, and it looks like they will soon pass the  EU AI Act. This is a Europe-wide regulation that covers AI in general, which has requirements for AI developers and others. At the moment, there’s very little policy in the United States that covers AI in general or data processing in general.

“The Biden administration has published the  AI Bill of Rights , which I think is promising. It specifies people's rights with respect to AI, and it advances discussions about how the principles it articulates could be operationalized and put into practice. But these are all voluntary recommendations and guidelines; they're not mandatory. We need to be having discussions about what kind of mandatory regulations should be put into place.

“It is important that, whatever policy initiatives we adopt, we promote public participation and democratic governance of AI. Ensuring the ethical and responsible design of AI systems doesn’t only require technical expertise — it also involves questions of societal governance and stakeholder participation. Because the impact of AI will be so disruptive and wide-ranging, it is crucial that those who are significantly impacted have the ability to participate in AI creation, deployment, and monitoring.” 

Avant South Responsible AI Event Coming This Fall  

AI Ethics and Policy Course Launched at Georgia Tech  

Exploring Art and AI in Georgia Tech's School of Literature, Media, and Communication  

Researchers Highlight Ethical Issues for Developing Future AI Assistants  

Georgia Tech Researcher Finds that Military Cannot Rely on AI for Strategy or Judgment  

Georgia Tech Ethics, Technology, and Human Interaction Center (ETHIC x )  

Georgia Tech-led Team Awarded $1.7M to Foster Artificial Intelligence Literacy  

Georgia Tech and Emory Pursuing AI-Assisted Social Justice in Tissue Biomanufacturing  

Dancing Around the Subject: AI Co-Creative Research Continues with KSU Motion Capture Sessions  

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MPhil in Sociology (Political and Economic Sociology)

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Course closed:

Sociology (Political and Economic Sociology) is no longer accepting new applications.

The Department of Sociology at the University of Cambridge is ranked first for Sociology in the  Guardian's Best Universities league table  and first for Sociology in the  Complete University Guide League Table 2023 . The UK's  2021 Research Excellence Framework  ranks our department second overall in the UK, and joint first for the research environment. And the  QS World University rankings  list our department as 6th of 330 sociology departments across the world in 2022.  

This pathway provides students with the opportunity to study the major themes and debates of Political and Economic Sociology at an advanced level. This pathway aims to integrate the consideration of political and economic debates with the study of substantive topics, as well as give a thorough grounding in research methods. There are four elements to the pathway:

1. A core course of six 2-hour sessions in Michaelmas and 2 sessions in Lent, (Michaelmas and Lent of the first year for part-time students),  covering some of the major theoretical contributions to the study of the Political and Economic Sociology and some key substantive topics. The substantive topics vary from year to year depending on staff availability. Other substantive modules may also have an economic sociology component, and these would complement the core modules well.

2. Research Methods: all students will receive training in research methods and will take a course on research methods which includes sessions on philosophical issues in the social sciences; research design; data collection and analysis in relation to quantitative and qualitative methods; reflection on research ethics and practice; library and computer skills. Students will also have the opportunity to take courses and attend lectures on many other aspects of the research method and design and will select these courses in discussion with their supervisor.

3. A series of optional one-hour seminars specific to the Political and Economic Sociology Pathway during Lent term. 

4. Dissertation: all students will write a dissertation on a topic of their choice that allows for theoretically informed empirical analysis of some aspect of political and economic sociology. The choice of dissertation topic is made in consultation with your supervisor, who can advise you on the suitability and feasibility of your proposed research and on research design. A dissertation workshop provides the opportunity to present aspects of your dissertation work and to receive constructive feedback from course teachers and fellow students.

Learning Outcomes

Upon completion of the programme students should have:

• an advanced understanding of current sociological research on selected topics;
• an understanding of the basic principles of social research, 
• the skills necessary to conduct independent social research and practical experience in the use of research methods;
• an ability to apply and develop key concepts and theories with respect to empirical topics;
• a deeper understanding of their chosen specialist area, including command of the literature and current research; and
• the ability to situate their own research within current developments in the field.

Students from a wide range of backgrounds attend the course, which is designed to enable the application of more specialist knowledge of political and economic sociology in a variety of fields, including government, social policy, law, journalism, third sector, as well as academia.

MPhil students who would like apply for the PhD would normally need to have a final mark of at least 70 per cent overall and 70 per cent on the dissertation. Please note that successful completion of the MPhil does not guarantee acceptance onto the PhD programme.

The Postgraduate Virtual Open Day usually takes place at the end of October. It’s a great opportunity to ask questions to admissions staff and academics, explore the Colleges virtually, and to find out more about courses, the application process and funding opportunities. Visit the  Postgraduate Open Day  page for more details.

See further the  Postgraduate Admissions Events  pages for other events relating to Postgraduate study, including study fairs, visits and international events.

Details of Open Day events run by the Sociology Department can be found on the  Department's Outreach Page .

Key Information

9 months full-time, 21 months part-time, study mode : taught, master of philosophy, department of sociology, course - related enquiries, application - related enquiries, course on department website, dates and deadlines:, michaelmas 2024 (closed).

Some courses can close early. See the Deadlines page for guidance on when to apply.

Funding Deadlines

These deadlines apply to applications for courses starting in Michaelmas 2024, Lent 2025 and Easter 2025.

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