This unit provides students with an introduction to the discipline of sociology through an analysis of contemporary Australian society. After an outline of the main theoretical perspectives in sociology, students will be drawing on key sociological perspectives and concepts to analyse a range of different social phenomena, including: globalisation, the mass media and the network society, family life, childhood and education; work, leisure and sport, and health and the body.

This unit provides students with an introduction to the discipline of sociology through an analysis of contemporary Australian society. Students will become familiar with the basics of doing social research as well as a number of key sociological perspectives and concepts in relation to a range of different social phenomena, including: class and inequality, gender and sexuality, national, racial and ethnic identity, the experience of Indigenous Australians, power and the state, social control, crime and deviance.

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.

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.

Drawing on contemporary sociological analysis, this unit critically explores participation, organisation and outcomes of social movements and protest. The unit considers major theories and concepts, and addresses links between societal, political and cultural arrangements and movements for change. Students will explore the theoretical ideas in this unit by investigating a range of historical and contemporary movements, including the American civil rights movement, Greenpeace, Pussy Riot, indigenous peoples' movements, liberation theology, precarity protests, Occupy, Tea Party, and Arab Spring.

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.

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.

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.

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.

Economic Sociology considers how social order, institutions and power relations shape economies, and how economic phenomena like markets, money and property relations shape society. This course will begin with the foundational texts of economic sociology (Simmel, Weber, Veblen, Marx), and then consider sociological approaches to commodities and consumption, money and finance, labour and the workplace, neoliberalism and the bioeconomy.

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.

This unit addresses the political, ethical and practical problems that may arise during the process of conducting research. It will also examine the social and logical links between theory, method, data and analysis. In the seminars we will critically examine the work of other researchers to identify the strengths and weaknesses of their approaches. As part of their assessment, students will select a topic of their own and develop a theoretically informed research proposal.

Honours is an intensive year-long program of advanced study based around research. Honours is undertaken after successful completion of a Bachelor degree and where the overall mark is a minimum credit average (70%). Entry into Honours is selective and work at this level is challenging. Honours is available in most subjects areas taught in the Faculty, and which are listed under Tables A and B in the Handbook. Students will complete a thesis and coursework seminars throughout the year. For further information contact the Honours Coordinator in the department or consult the Handbook entry for the relevant subject area.

refer to SCLG4011

refer to SCLG4011

refer to SCLG4011

In this unit of study Australian social policy is explored: the legal and administrative framework; relationships between family and the state; employment, unemployment, unpaid work and welfare; the public/private mix; aged care policies, the culture of welfare state provision, indigenous policies, migration, multiculturalism and the formulation and delivery of social welfare services in Australia.

This unit is essentially conceptual and theoretical, emphasising the contested principles of social policy - discourse, theories, ideas and ideologies - around which the contemporary welfare state was, is and continues to be organised, discussed and debated. This unit focuses on the application of concepts and theories in practical social policy arenas. In particular, the emphasis will be on the debated, sometimes contested, nature of concepts and theories in social policy discourses in contemporary societies.

How and why do some ideas about social justice, distribution and inequality get translated into social policy while others do not? This unit explores concepts that feature prominently in the contemporary configuration of welfare states. It examines how key social policy ideas are translated (or not) into policy practice and the conditions under which these ideas become materialised and changed over time. Through the use of case studies, students are given the opportunity to explore the policy dynamics that underpin the emergence, development and demise of social policies.