Arts and Social Sciences

Welcome to the School of Arts & Social Sciences at Queen Margaret University, Edinburgh

Providing a range of professionally relevant courses, the School of Arts & Social Sciences (SASS) equips students with skills and knowledge essential to building a successful career in their chosen area. SASS is also actively involved in research; and in consultancy to external bodies and companies. We also have collaborations with universities across the globe.

SASS provides high quality teaching and research in the areas of:

• Media, Communication and Performing Arts
• Psychology and Sociology

Media, Communication and Performing Arts

All of our media and communication-related undergraduate courses, including the only programme in Scotland accredited by the Chartered Institute of Public Relations (CIPR), offer a critical understanding of media, culture and society, while one sixth of each programme is devoted to practical media production. QMU is the only Scottish institution to offer CIPR accredited undergraduate and postgraduate programmes and to teach the CIPR Diploma.

QMU has an excellent reputation for providing undergraduate degrees in the performing arts and we have produced many graduates who have gone on to become familiar faces on stage and screen. Our staff comprise a lively community of enquiring practitioners. Our aim is to educate and train cultural sector workers; and theatre & screen practitioners at both undergraduate and postgraduate levels.

SASS offers a dynamic programme of education geared towards professional work in the arts and entertainment industries and a lively and inquisitive practical study of contemporary theatre. Links with the industry are strong. In both undergraduate and postgraduate education, the aim is to develop graduates who are critical and reflective independent practitioners, who are immediately employable within the theatre and performance sectors. Furthermore, as a School we believe that it is vital that our work reflects contemporary working practice and therefore, where appropriate, students collaborate across programmes on a variety of projects.

Psychology and Sociology

We are rapidly expanding our undergraduate and postgraduate courses , maintaining the high standards required for accreditation by the British Psychological Society .

Psychology BSc Honours degrees all become eligible for Membership of the British Psychological Society and Graduate Basis for Registration. We also offer optional routes with broader emphases in the social sciences.

At postgraduate level, our courses are mostly available on a full-time and part-time basis. Some are taught in short blocks which means that you may only need to visit the university a few times.

Facilities

Having moved to a brand new campus in 2007, the School is equipped with the latest facilities and technology to provide teaching and learning to students. For Psychology students we have interpersonal skills laboratory for video work, a psychology practical lab with a variety of specialised apparatus, a health psychology resource room with biofeedback equipment and a workshop for computer-based study.

Careers

On graduation, our students are well equipped to enter into their chosen career.

Due to the range of modules covered on our media and communication courses, our students gain knowledge and skills in many areas of the overall subject and graduates have gone onto careers in PR, film making, advertising, broadcasting, marketing, news production, TV research and events management, to name but a few.

Graduates from our Psychology and Sociology courses gain a wide range of transferable skills and are also able to enter into a variety of jobs, for example psychologists, health promotion , social work, marketing, advertising, counselling, forensics, education,

Not only do we produce great actors, of both stage and screen, we provide graduates who contribute overall - costume designers, stage managers, play writers and festival managers for example.

Study Abroad Opportunities

It is possible for media and communication students to study for a semester abroad at universities in Sweden, the USA and Australia.

Research

The School is actively involved in research in the areas of:

• The History of Scottish Book Production
• Culture and Politics
• Critical Perspectives on Public Relations practice
• The Production and Representation of Tourist and Cultural Spaces
• Psychology of Communicative Processes
• Cognition, Beliefs and Behaviour
• National Theatre of Scotland: impacts and resonances for the future of Scottish theatre
• Theatre and gender, studies into work of contemporary Scottish women playwrights
• Studies in stage translation
• The role of the Chief Executive in theatre companies: artistic director, producer or manager?
• The role of the director in contemporary Scottish theatre
• Creative and business development of theatre companies
• The changing face of community theatre in Scotland and the implications for future work
• Place and Space in Screen Fiction
• Performing for the Camera
• Non-western performative perspectives in theory and practice

Research Centres

The School also encompasses a number of research centres and knowledge transfer centres.

Recognition and Achievements

We are the only institution in Scotland that is:

• accredited by the Institute of Public Relations to deliver its prestigious and competitive CIPR Diploma
• accredited to offer degrees in Health Psychology

International Collaborations

We have collaboration with the following institutions in IEK-AKMI : Athens, Greece for the validated programmes:

• BA Mass Communication and Media Arts
• BA Performing Arts

For more information, contact:

School Office, School of Arts and Social Sciences

Tel: 0131 474 000

Email :SASSadmin@qmu.ac.uk

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