Stanford in Oxford

Social Sciences

Social Sciences tutorials are amongst the most popular for Stanford students studying in Oxford. Like the humanities, social science tutorials are traditionally structured around research papers of around 2,000 words per week, although some use problem sets and short answer essays in place of tutorial essays. Please note that the overall workload remains the same.

The Social Sciences departments are

  • Anthropology and Archaeology
  • Governance
  • Economics
  • Geography
  • Interdisciplinary Area Studies
  • International Development
  • Oxford Internet Institute
  • Law
  • Politics and International Relations
  • Management (Said Business School)
  • Social Policy and Intervention
  • Sociology

Anthropology and Archaeology

At Oxford, Archaeology and Anthropology are studied together as complementary approaches to the exploration of human diversity. The temporal scope of the programme extends from human origins in the Palaeolithic period down to modern society, and its geographical scope includes communities across the entire globe. Thematically, it incorporates both the biological study of the human species and the cultural interpretation of social and material life in its historical and comparative aspects. Below is the list of core tutorial papers in Archaeology and Anthropology, but those Stanford students who are interested in more specialised subjects can explore the optional tutorials on the department of Archaeology's website.

  • Introduction to World Archaeology 
  • Introduction to Anthropological Theory Perspectives on Human Evolution 
  • The Nature of Archaeological and Anthropological Enquiry 
  • Cultural Representations, Beliefs and Practices 
  • Landscape and Ecology 
  • Urbanism and Society

Economics

While a great deal of important research in economics is done at Oxford, Economics is always studieds as part of joint degrees with other disciplines, reflecting the longstanding view in Oxford that all economists should be interdisciplinary thinkers. The most famous of these joint degrees is PPE (Philosophy, Politics and Economics), but Economics & Management, and Economics & History are also popular choices. Below is a list of the core tutorials in Economics and Economic History:

  • Introduction to Microeconomics
  • Introduction to Macroeconomics
  • Behavioural and Experimental Economics
  • Econometrics
  • Game Theory
  • Money and Banking
  • Public Economics
  • International Economics
  • Environmental Economics
  • Labour Economics and Inequality
  • Economics of Industry
  • History of Economic Thought
  • Global Capitalism

Geography

At Oxford, Geography combines Physical, Environmental and Human Geography. In their first year students take four compulsory courses (listed below) and then pursue a relatively flexible programme along the three aforementioned pathways or their interdisciplinary intersection. Stanford students can choose one of the core courses or more specialised elective papers (a more expansive list of the latter can be explored on the School’s of Geography's website).

First-year tutorials: 

  • Earth System Processes 
  • Human Geography 
  • Geographical Controversies 
  • Geographical Techniques 

Second- & Third-Year Core/Foundation Tutorials: 

  • Earth System Dynamics 
  • Environmental Geography 
  • Geographical Thought 
  • Space, Place and Society 

Elective Papers (a sample): 

  • Climate Change Impacts and Adaptation 
  • Conservation
  • Desert Landscapes and Dynamics
  • Island Life 
  • Geographic Data Science 
  • Contemporary Issues in Cultural Geography 
  • Critical Development Geographies 
  • Geographies for the Anthropocene 
  • Finance and Sustainability 
  • New Approaches in Urban Geographies 
  • Sustainable Urbanisms 
  • Transport and Mobility 

International Development

The Department of International Development at Oxford only ever offers graduate degree level study, but Stanford students are allowed to pursue some of its courses in the tutorial format. The Department has five main taught programmes: Development Studies, Economics for Development, Global Governance and Diplomacy, Migration Studies, and Refugee and Forced Migration Studies. Some of the core courses from those programmes are listed below. For a full range, please, consult the Department of International Development's website: 

Development Studies:

  • Ideas about Development: Social, Political and Development Theory
  • Key Themes in Development

Economics for Development:

  • Political Economy of Economic Development
  • Public Finances in Developing Countries
  • Environment and Development

Global Governance and Diplomacy:

  • Global Governance and Diplomacy
  • Peacebuilding and Statebuilding
  • Political Economy of Institutions and Development

Migration Studies:

  • Migration and the Economy
  • Governance of Migration
  • Anthropology of Migration
  • Migration and Development

Refugee and Forced Migration Studies:

  • The Anthropology of Forced Migration
  • The Politics of Forced Migration
  • Movement and Morality

Oxford Internet Institute

The Oxford Internet Institute was founded in 2001 as one of the first centres dedicated to studying the impact of the Internet on society and continues to be a global leader in this multidisciplinary field. OII is one of the key partners of Stanford in Oxford and, while it only offers graduate programmes, its courses are available to Stanford students in the tutorial format. The tutorials below are organised according to OII’s two main study tracks: Social Science of the Internet and Social Data Science. 

Social Science of the Internet: 

  • Internet and Society 
  • Internet Technologies and Regulation 
  • Algorithmic Fairness and Accountability 
  • Artificial Intelligence for Policymaking 
  • Cultural Analytics 
  • Digital Ethics 
  • Education, the Internet and Society 
  • Decoding Development in Digital South Asia 
  • Fair Digital Economies 
  • Internet Economics 
  • Law and the Internet 
  • Subversive Economies 
  • Digital Ethnography 
  • Computational Methods for the Social Sciences 

Social Data Science: 

  • Data and Society
  • Machine Learning
  • Applied Analytical Statistics 
  • Data-Driven Network Science

Law

In the United Kingdom, and therefore at Oxford as well, it is possible to undertake the study of law at the undergraduate level. The courses that are identified by the legal professions as necessary for legal practice are also taught at Oxford as academic disciplines. Naturally, the majority of Oxford’s law courses are focused on England and Wales’s legal system. However, there are plenty of tutorials with wider applicability, such as Jurisprudence (Theory of Law), International Law and adjacent disciplines (e.g. Criminology). The tutorials that are compulsory for Oxford students are organised below into the first-year (so called Mods) and second-/third-year (Final Honour School) courses. The list then includes a selection of optional papers (for a full range, please, consult the Faculty of Law's website):

Mods:

  • A Roman Introduction to Private Law
  • Constitutional Law
  • Criminal Law

 

FHS:

  • Administrative Law
  • Contract
  • European Union Law
  • Jurisprudence
  • Land Law
  • Tort
  • Trusts

 

Optional courses:

  • Commercial Law
  • Comparative Law
  • Criminology and Criminal Justice
  • Environmental Law
  • Family Law
  • Feminists Perspectives in Law
  • History of English Law
  • Human Rights Law
  • Medical Law and Ethics
  • Public International Law

Politics and International Relations

At Oxford, undergraduate students can study Politics only as part of two joint-honours degrees: Philosophy, Politics and Economics and Politics and History. Politics as a discipline covers both domestic and international politics and includes such areas as comparative government, political theory, political sociology and international relations. Stanford students can select the following Politics tutorials organised into ‘foundation’ (first-year courses) and ‘specialisation’ (second- and third-year courses).

Foundation:

  • The Theory of Politics
  • Theories of the State
  • The Practice of Politics

Specialisation:

Core papers:

  • Comparative Government
  • British Politics and Government since 1900
  • International Relations 

Optional papers:

  • Modern British Government and Politics
  • Government and Politics of the US
  • Politics in Europe
  • Politics in the European Union
  • Politics in Russian and the Former Soviet Union
  • Politics in Sub-Saharan Africa
  • Politics in Latin America
  • Politics in South Asia
  • Politics in the Middle East
  • Politics in China
  • International Relations in the Era of Two World Wars
  • International Relations in the Era of the Cold War
  • Political Thought: Plato to Rousseau
  • Political Thought: Bentham to Weber
  • Marx and Marxism 
  • Social Policy
  • Comparative Demographic Systems
  • Theories of Justice
  • Comparative Political Economy
  • International Security and Conflict
  • Feminist Theory

Management (Said Business School)

The Said Business School offers an undergraduate degree in Economics and Management. Since many Economics modules directly overlap with the tutorial offering of the Department of Economics, below is the list of Management tutorials organised into the first- and second-/third-year courses.

First-year tutorials:

  • General Management
  • Financial Management

 

Second-/Third-year tutorials:

  • Accounting
  • AI in Management
  • Entrepreneurship and Innovation
  • Marketing 
  • Organisational Behaviour and Analysis
  • Strategic Management
  • Technology and Operations Management

Social Policy and Intervention

The Department of Social Policy and Intervention is a leading interdisciplinary centre for research and graduate teaching in social policy and the systematic evaluation of social intervention, including public health and healthcare economics. The following tutorials offered by the department are available:

Sociology

Oxford’s Department of Sociology does not offer an undergraduate degree in Sociology, but Sociology is studied by Oxford students as part of other undergraduate programmes, such History & Politics and Philosophy, Politics and Economics. The following core Sociology tutorials are available to Stanford students:

  • Introduction to Sociology
  • Political Sociology
  • Sociological Theory