This unit provides students with an introduction to the understanding of legal ideas, institutions and practices in their social and historical contexts. It will provide an historical overview of legal institutions and forms of law in Australia, the place of the idea of the rule of law in state-formation, liberalism, processes of civilisation and colonialism, law and the public/private distinction, changing conceptions of human rights, as well as outlining the central features of the various fields of law.

This unit provides an understanding of the central themes and issues in social scientific analyses of the operation of law in society. After briefly outlining the various ways in which social life is organised in terms of law, the unit will examine a range of key concerns in the development of legal ideas, institutions and processes today, including the increasing legal regulation of private life, law and science, human rights, the globalisation of law, terrorism, risk and security, law and social inequality and citizenship.

This core unit explores theoretical approaches to studying socio-legal dynamics in a globalised society. It examines key theoretical debates drawing on classical theorists (Weber, Durkheim, Marx), more recent social theorists (Habermas, Foucault, Bourdieu) and critical notes from gender, queer, race, postcolonial, and science studies.

This unit will provide students with an appreciation of issues facing Indigenous peoples in the struggle for social and legal justice, focusing on the idea of Indigenous justice in Australia in the context of other comparable nations, such as the United States, Canada and New Zealand. We will compare specific examples or models of law and policy recognising Indigenous social and legal justice in specific areas, such as child protection, criminal justice, and land rights, in Australia and overseas.

This unit explores definitions of crime, criminological theories of crime causation, and core concepts and research methods in criminology. It examines key features of criminal justice institutions and crime justice policy, and addresses contemporary debates about crime in relation to topics such as gender, race, ethnicity, and youth offending.

This unit explores key features of criminal justice processes and practices, with a critical examination of policing, sentencing, punishment and prison in their historical, social, political and cultural contexts. It considers a range of related concepts and issues, including the expansion of punishment in society and post-release life.

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.

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 will develop an understanding of social science research methods as they apply to quantitative and qualitative socio-legal studies. The unit will consider the epistemological, ontological and theoretical aspects of qualitative and quantitative research design and methodology and provide an overview of the main research methods applicable in both qualitative and quantitative socio-legal studies. Students will learn about the different stages involved in the development of both qualitative and quantitative socio-legal research projects.

Global human rights and the idea of 'one humanity' became politically possible with the end of the Cold War. This unit explores the production of the human rights system as the top down process of legalisation, institutionalisation and intervention and the bottom up process victim claim-making, collective mobilisation and transnational advocacy.

This unit explores different theoretical perspectives on social justice relating to income and wealth distribution, identity, social recognition, law and rights. It applies these to contemporary examples, including income and wealth disparities, race and gender inequality, disability rights, the environment and treatment of non-human animals.

This unit of study examines the relationship between crime, law, medicine and science. It focuses on criminal detection practices, death investigation systems, the coroner's office, autopsies and socio-legal management of the dead body, human tissue and organ controversies, and the role of medicine, science and psychology in criminal justice.

This unit examines criminological approaches that explore intersections between criminal justice, law, media forms and cultural dynamics, including in the areas of moral panics, media trials, crime fear, cultural criminology, popular culture, serial killing, female criminality, surveillance, policing protest, organised crime, and terrorism.

Interdisciplinarity is a key skill in fostering agility in life and work. This unit provides learning experiences that build students' skills, knowledge and understanding of the application of their disciplinary background to interdisciplinary contexts. In this unit, students will work in teams and develop interdisciplinarity skills through problem-based learning projects responding to 'real world problems'.

This unit provides theoretical and conceptual insights into socio-legal research, so students can reflect critically on their own research processes via the analysis of substantive topics, including policing, legal secrecy, surveillance, critical discourse analysis of race, sex and gender, and matters of indigenous law.

This unit examines a range of sociological research methods, including their historical and political locations and logics, with a view to providing students with a strong methodological framework to situate their own research practices, and to produce greater reflexivity about social research and writing in sociology.

This unit provides students the opportunity to begin developing their own research project working closely with their supervisors and engaging in activities that will facilitate the timely completion of their research. Activities may include drafting a literature and methods review, submitting an ethics application, and the scoping for fieldwork.

Working closely with supervisors, students produce an original piece of written socio-legal research, which may include the analysis of data gathered from fieldwork that is applied to relevant literature/s, or the writing of a thesis using secondary sources, which are analysed to produce an original contribution to knowledge.