This unit introduces students to the study of sociology through an analysis of contemporary Australian society. Using a range of sociological concepts and theories, we will analyse society in the period known as 'modernity'. Students will be encouraged to analyse existing social phenomena through the prisms of gender, sexuality, ethnicity, class, multiculturalism and indigeneity.

Students will continue to be introduced to sociology through the analysis of contemporary society. Through a focus on the sociology of everyday life, we will explore the relationships between various social and cultural forms, institutional sites and the practices of everyday life. Topics such as fame and celebrity, fashion and consumption, globalisation community and belonging will be explored.

In this unit of study we will examine the main strands of sociological thought and identify the key concepts, debates and issues in the development of sociological theory. It will focus on the writings of leading social theorists and sociologists, their contribution to the development of a distinctly sociological theory, and their continuing impact on current theoretical debates in sociology. Topics covered will include: the origins of sociology; industrialism; classical theorists; sociology of urban society; interactionism and everyday life; psychoanalysis; sociology of knowledge and culture; feminist challenges to sociological paradigms; postmodernity and the future of society. This unit is mandatory for Sociology majors.

This unit of study introduces students to a range of qualitative research methods in common usage throughout the social sciences. The unit has both analytical and practical components. With regard to the former, students are introduced to the methodological issues in contemporary sociology and their impact on the research process. An emphasis will be placed on developing a critical ability to read sociological research, with an eye to understanding its methodological adequacy, the political and ethical issues that arise whilst conducting research, and debates over interpretation and the production of knowledge. With regard to the latter component, students will undertake practical exercises in order to learn to appreciate and use a selection of research approaches, methods and techniques.

Students will be introduced to both past and current sociological perspectives of health and illness, including Parsonian, Marxist, Weberian, Feminist and Postmodern approaches. We will examine topics such as the social, unequal, structuring of illness; the construction of medical 'facts'; professional, corporate and state control over health care systems; medical controversies; iatrogenic illness; and medical technology.

This unit examines sociological approaches to social inequality. Questions about social inequality are integral to contemporary notions of equality, citizenship, human rights, social justice and emancipation. A central theme of the unit (and a central preoccupation of sociologists) is ways in which social relations of inequality are shaped, represented, experienced, negotiated and challenged in everyday life. Some important questions for this unit are: How do sociologists understand and explain patterns of inequality? What are the enabling and constraining factors shaping people's 'life chances'? How are social relations of inequality, experienced, challenged and disrupted? Is social inequality an inevitable condition of human existence?

This unit of study examines a range of approaches to social justice, including distributive and recognition or identity theories. We ask how one works out what a socially just society would look like, considering guiding principles such as desert, need, merit and equality of resources, opportunity or capabilities. We then link these ideas with principles and practices of legal equality and human rights law and specific contemporary social justice topics such as racial, gender, environmental and international justice.

This unit will examine key issues and debates within current sociological writings on media in contemporary society. The tutorial discussions focus on media, including radio, film, television, video, print, news, current affairs programmes and advertising, all of which are considered in relation to media audiences. We will consider the research literature on the sociology of media in order to investigate methods of carrying out media research, particularly of media audience research. The aim is to encourage students to develop an informed understanding of media, including their own engagement with media in contemporary society, and to explore computer based technology as an educational tool for studying media in contemporary society.

Drawing on contemporary sociological analysis this unit critically explores participation, organisation and outcomes of social movements. The unit explores the intersections between citizenship and democracy in relation to social movements and policy making. Moreover, the unit addresses links between societal and cultural arrangements and social movements for change. Students will have the opportunity to explore the theoretical ideas introduced in this unit by investigating a range of social movements, such as, anti-global movements, environmentalism and feminist movements.

This unit of study focuses on understanding 'deviance' and 'difference' from a sociological perspective. The unit covers a range of theories, from classic sociological theories of deviance to more recent critical theories of difference, and explores the key issues involved in this change of term. These theories are employed to explore a series of areas of contemporary debate in society, including youth subcultures, the construction of outsiders, rebellion, the body, and mental health.

This unit of study will examine key issues and debates within current sociological writings on culture. It will assess critically a range of cultural issues pertinent to structuralist, poststructuralist, deconstructionist as well as postmodern accounts of contemporary culture. An aim of this unit is to link concepts of culture to specific case studies, in order to facilitate the joining of theory with research. This aim will be achieved through addressing various issues, including analysis of cultural representations, popular culture, as well as the role of agency within cultural formations.

This unit examines a range of sociological theories and debates concerning science and technology. Students will investigate the two-way relationship between science/technology and society (ie. the social shaping of science and technology, and the impact of science and technology on society). Issues to be examined include the social production of science and technology, the science-technology relationship, the politics and economics of science and technology, science and technology in medicine, in reproduction, in the workplace, and the role of science and technology in environmentalism and the environmental movement.

How do most industrialised countries publicly manage social risks? What are the principles that underpin these arrangements and how can we explain the differences between countries? Why do we want to compare the social policies of different countries? How can we meaningfully compare such policies? This unit examines these questions by comparing welfare state activity in particular spheres and explores some of the key practical, methodological and theoretical issues facing those comparing welfare states.

The nature of human subjectivity has fascinated and drawn the attention of thinkers from many different fields. While the questions, 'who are we?' and 'how do we become individual?' are often asked, the ways of answering these questions constantly change. In this unit, the discursive construction of the self will be examined in the light of the political, technological and social changes that constantly influence the meanings and histories of self, subjectivity and identity. The unit will explore questions such as whether there is a human 'nature' which precedes or exists beyond society; whether historical circumstances determine human emotional response; whether new forms of technology and modes of communication influence self-knowledge; whether consumerism and materialism commodify identity; whether the roles played in everyday life and the management of social interactions produce or conceal who we are. The unit begins with commonsensical views on identity and proceeds to deconstruct them.

This unit of study examines the main sociological approaches to childhood and youth in modern industrial societies, as well as the ways in which particular perspectives on childhood are central to all social theory. It will examine the debates surrounding the historical development of childhood, and the various approaches to the impact of state intervention and social policies on both the experiences of childhood and youth and the transition to adulthood. Specific topics discussed include; the social construction of child abuse, youth homelessness and youth criminality as social problems, the stolen generations, children and the law, the fertility decline, and the differentiation of childhood experience along lines of class, gender, race and ethnicity.

This unit provides a detailed understanding of how the work of a broad range of social theorists contributes to a specifically sociological understanding of legal ideas, institutions and practices. After beginning with classical sociology - Durkheim, Marx and Weber, the unit will then discuss the contributions of the Frankfurt School, Habermas, Foucault, Bourdieu, Luhmann, Elias, and Selznick, as well as the more recent perspectives of postmodern and feminist social theory.

Cities are synonymous with modernity and modernisation; hence, sociologists have long sought to understand the unique features of urban society. In the first part of this unit we explore foundational theories of urban sociology in their historical contexts. In the second part we examine how these theories have been challenged both through the structural transformation of established cities and through the emergence of many new types of cities in the rapidly urbanising developing world.

This unit examines the operation of symbolic power and diverse social manifestations of violence, from revolution through to eroticism. Of particular interest are social imaginaries and the way collective representations embody social creativity, legitimate social structures and inform projects of violent social reconstruction, including war, terrorism, nationalism and genocide. Social imaginaries are constitutive of nationalist visions of self-determining communities, capitalist wealth and social utopias. Different modes of critical analysis are introduced, like critical social theory, discourse analysis, and psychoanalysis.

This unit will examine the relationship between sport and society, particularly the formation and reproduction of social norms and groupings. Analysing society from modernist and post-structuralist perspectives, students will use social theories of discourse, identity formation and power relations to explore the role of sport in the development and reproduction of gender, sexual, class, and racial and national groups. Topics discussed include sport as a vehicle of social empowerment or marginalisation, sport as colonialism, and sport as consumption and popular entertainment.

The unit explores how power and politics shape our lives across the different social arenas we inhabit. Drawing on the work of Castells, Sennett, Foucault, Bourdieu, Chomsky, the Frankfurt School, among others, the unit explores: changes in the world of work; global effects of information and communication technologies; power of corporations; the surveillance society; education's role in shaping society; culture, fashion and the media; consumerism and rebellion; and how economic, political and scientific practices meet in the climate change debate.

This unit examines the relationship between terrorism and globalisation. Explores themes of massacre, ethnic cleansing, and terrorism in the context of social uncertainty and crises in nation states. Examines the production of victims and the process of cultural symbolisation of the body and the new social and political imaginaries emerging. Examines the uses of victimhood in trying to escape terror and achieve reconciliation. Draws on the work of Scarry, Kristeva, Appadurai, Nordstrom, Foucault, Zulaika and Taussig.

Explores the rise of human rights discourse and its relationship to moral and religious discourses on suffering and social justice across cultures. Focuses on victims of human rights abuse, the formation of communities of suffering and social movements around victimhood. Examines 'rights talk' as a global discourse and language of protest against social injustice and claims. Examines global human rights machinery and the ethics of humanitarian intervention. Case studies from Latin America, Africa and the Middle East.

This unit examines the ways in which the religious impulse has been expressed socially, the role of religion in society, the way in which individuals form and change religious commitments, the ways in which religious groups have been organised and evolve, the nature of belief as it is expressed collectively and individually, and controversies over the role of religion in social life. Illustrations from contemporary events will be used to explore major religious policy issues and controversies.

The actions of both citizens and institutions are being scrutinised as never before. Personal information is a key commodity and resource, being routinely extracted from individuals as they partake in everyday activities. Surveillance has a complex form as both material force and discursive construction. Thus, the unit's objective is to equip students with the theoretical tools required to analytically comprehend the diverse ways in which surveillance is produced, represented and experienced.

This unit outlines the sociological analysis of celebrity, examining how we can see celebrity as a particular social form characteristic of modernity, and what makes it possible to speak of a 'celebrity society'. It reflects on the history of celebrity, the concept of court society, the production of celebrity and the economics of attention, para-social interaction, celebrity in sport, politics, diplomacy, management and business, the power relations characterizing celebrity society, and the trend lines in the future development of celebrity.

This unit introduces students to ways in which sociology can engage in the study of the 'natural environment' and critically illuminate contemporary environmental controversies, disputes and proposals. The 'natural environment' is explored through such topics as risk, modernity, consumption, identity, expertise, ethics, technology, democracy and citizenship. These topics are linked to empirical case studies that cover, for instance, tourism, animal culling, environmental activism, climate change modelling, and shifting bodily capacities.

This unit of study is intended to prepare undergraduate students to undertake independent quantitative analyses of social science data. Topics include: basic statistical numeracy, how to achieve quantitative results, how to write about quantitative analyses, and basic literacy in generalised linear models. The unit of study is writing intensive. No specific prior mathematical training is assumed, though a basic grasp of simple algebra is expected. By the end of the course, students should be able to approach quantitative social science data with confidence.

The unit introduces students to the analysis of crime, detection and punishment in their historical, social, political and cultural contexts. It discusses the major theoretical perspectives on the explanation of crime as well as the role and functions of punishment. It examines a range of issues in understanding crime and criminal justice, including the cultural life of crime, forensic knowledge, policing and prisons, and youth and juvenile justice.

The Honours program in Sociology and Social Policy consists of: 1. a thesis written under the supervision of one or more members of academic staff; 2. two seminars that meet weekly for two hours each during Semester 1. For more information, consult the Department of Sociology and Social Policy website or contact the Honours Coordinator.

refer to SCLG4011

refer to SCLG4011

refer to SCLG4011