Socio-Legal Studies

The Socio-Legal Studies program is administered by the department of Sociology and Social Policy. The department of Sociology and Social Policy is part of the School of Social and Political Sciences (SSPS).

Bachelor of Arts and Sciences
Students enrolled in the Bachelor of Arts and Sciences are required to complete two junior units in Law/Legal Studies. Two of these are offered by the department of Sociology and Social Policy within the field of socio-legal studies, which encompasses the study of legal ideas, institutions and practices from the perspective of the humanities and social sciences. They are SLSS1001 Introduction to Socio-Legal Studies and SLSS1003 Law and Contemporary Society.

Bachelor of Socio-Legal Studies
The Bachelor of Socio-Legal Studies is designed for students who are interested in studying and understanding legal ideas, institutions and practices from the perspectives of the humanities and social sciences. It is not a professional law degree, but an opportunity to engage with the ever-changing relationship between law and society using the methods of a broad range of humanities and social science disciplines, including history, philosophy, political science, sociology, social policy, performance studies, anthropology, literary studies, and economics. It combines a clear focus on the core socio-legal subjects with the breadth provided by a second major in Arts, as well as a pool of related electives in Arts and Economics and Business.

Whether your interest is participating in the many exciting fields of research studying legal ideas and institutions in their historical, cultural and social contexts, or working in the fields of professional practice that link an understanding of law with other forms of knowledge, the Bachelor of Socio-Legal Studies will provide you with the skills and capacities you need. As well as giving you a solid starting point for a research degree in socio-legal arenas, the degree will provide the foundation for a wide variety of professional fields which lie outside the legal profession itself, but articulate closely with it: social policy, government and business administration and management, non-government organisations, criminology, public advocacy, etc.

The requirements for the Bachelor of Socio-Legal Studies are:

1. A major in Socio-Legal studies comprising:

• SLSS1001 Introduction to Socio-Legal Studies and SLSS1003 Law and Contemporary Society
• SCLG2601 Sociological Theory
• SLSS2601 Socio-Legal Research
• SCLG2615 Law and Social Theory
• PHIL2645 Philosophy of Law
• Two senior elective units from a pool of related socio-legal units (see list at point 3. below)

2. A second major from the Table A units of study from the Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences.

3. A choice of four senior units drawn, provisionally, from the following list:

• SCLG2605 Social Justice, Law and Society
• SCLG2608 Social Construction of Difference
• SCLG2618 Violence, Imaginaries and Symbolic Power
• SCLG2621 Power, Politics and Society
• SCLG2634 Crime, Punishment and Society
• SLSS2603 Medico-Legal and Forensic Criminology
• SLSS2604 Indigenous Social and Legal Justice
• SLSS2605 Crime, Media and Culture
• ASLT2617 Writing and Justice
• HSTY2652 Genocide in Historical Perspective
• HSTY2671 Law and Order in Modern America
• PHIL2635 Contemporary Political Philosophy
• PHIL2617 Practical Ethics
• WORK2227 Regulation at Work
• WORK2219 Management and Organisational Ethics
• GOVT2665 Ethics and Politics
• GOVT2111 Human Rights and Australian Politics
• GOVT2336 Gender and Human Rights
• ECOP3017 Human Rights in Development
• ECOS3015 Law and Economics

Please note that the exact range of electives offered may differ in 2011.

Students are encouraged to choose complimentary sets of units of study, focusing, for example, on criminology or human rights.

Honours (see chapter 5 for more information)
Students intending to proceed to Socio-Legal Studies IV honours must meet the requirement for the pass degree with a credit average in 48 senior credit points across their senior Socio-Legal units.

Further information and advice
Department Website: sydney.edu.au/arts/sociology_social_policy
The director of the Bachelor of Socio-Legal Studies is Dr Rebecca Scott Bray, email: