Social Anthropology and Social Policy

Social anthropology and social policy is a pairing that connects two disciplines with a shared concern for human welfare and social organisation, approaching it from complementary angles. Social anthropology studies human societies in their diversity, using ethnographic methods to understand how people in different cultural contexts organise their lives, construct meaning, and relate to one another. Social policy examines how modern states and other institutions respond to social problems, asking what welfare systems do, who they benefit, and how they might be improved.

Together, they produce graduates who can both understand social difference and engage critically with the policy processes that shape people's lives.

At the University of Edinburgh, this four-year programme develops your skills in both disciplines across a sustained period of study. In the social anthropology strand, you will engage with ethnographic theory and method, reading accounts of societies across the world and developing the cross-cultural sensitivity that the discipline demands. You will ask questions about kinship, religion, economics, politics, and medicine as they are practised in diverse human communities, and you will develop the research skills needed to study social life empirically.

In the social policy strand, you will examine welfare states in comparative perspective, explore the politics of public expenditure and social provision, and engage with the lived experience of policy in areas such as poverty, health, housing, and education. The programme includes a year abroad, which may involve study or fieldwork in a different national context, deepening your comparative understanding.

Graduates move into careers in the public sector, including social care, housing, health, and government policy roles where an understanding of both cultural diversity and welfare systems is an asset. International development, humanitarian organisations, and non-governmental bodies focused on social welfare and human rights provide further destinations. Academic research in anthropology, social policy, or related disciplines draws those who continue to postgraduate study.

Teaching, community development, and roles in the voluntary sector round out the range of pathways available.