Diversity has become one of the most important issues in contemporary society. Increasingly communities and workplaces encourage us to support diversity. This unit introduces students to a range of diversity issues informed by race, ethnicity, gender, class, sexuality and dis/ability and the importance of cultivating understanding and respect for difference. It will appeal to students interested in social, economic and cultural marginalisation.

Anthropology explores and explains cultural difference while affirming the unity of humankind. It provides accounts of cultural specificity that illuminate the world today. Lectures will address some examples of cultural difference from the present and the past. These examples will introduce modern Anthropology, the method of ethnography, and its related forms of social and cultural analysis.

Cultural studies explores everyday life, media and popular culture. It shows us how we can make sense of contemporary culture as producers, consumers, readers and viewers, in relation to our identities and communities. How do various cultural texts and practices convey different kinds of meaning and value? Drawing upon key approaches in the field, students will learn how to analyse cultural forms such as advertising, television, film and popular music.

How does gender organise lives, bodies, sexualities and desires? How does gender relate to sex and sexuality? Are there really only two genders? How and why is gender such an integral part of how we identify ourselves and others? This unit introduces students to foundational concepts in the study of gender and critically engages with questions of identity, sexuality, family, the body, cultural practices and gender norms in light of contemporary gender theories.

A comparative study of race and ethnic group relations. The unit will consider the history of ideas of 'race' and practices of racialising and their relationship to ethnicity. It will draw on studies from various areas including North America, the Caribbean, Japan and Australia.

This unit introduces students to cultural theories about race and ethnicity and uses these theories to examine representations of racial minorities across a range of media such as film, literature and performance within multiple national contexts. In particular, it interrogates the relationship between these representations and those of gender and sexuality. In so doing, it provides a complex understanding of how 'race' and 'gender' as institutional forces and lived experiences help shape perceptions of ourselves and others.

In this unit of study we will examine the ways in which feminist and other cultural theories have used bodies and sexualities in order to theorise difference and identity. The body and sexuality have been shown to be a major site for the operation of power in our society. We will look at how bodies and sexualities have given rise to critical understandings of identity. The unit of study will be devoted to working through some of the major theories of sexuality and embodiment, and the analysis of cultural practices.

Although it originated in the study of women¿s oppression in male-dominated cultures, gender studies increasingly considers masculinity an effect of power rather than its means. Via a range of case studies we consider the changing expectations around masculinity in practices of production, consumption, embodiment, domesticity and intimacy. This unit makes frequent reference to the representation of masculinity in various genres of popular culture that deal with boyhood, adolescence, initiation, manhood, romance, athleticism, heroism, crime, vulnerability, submission, depression and defeat.

This unit examines academic, public and popular ideas about youth and practices of youth culture. It will introduce students to some of the current parameters for studying the experience of youth and youth cultural forms and practices. We will pay particular attention to the ways young lives are gendered and the role gender plays in the institutions and other contexts in which young people live. Other points of focus include changing conceptions of youth, relationships between policy and youth, images of youth and youth culture, and discourses on (im)maturity, training, and identity.

This unit explores ideas of 'otherness' via concepts of exclusion, marginalised, inequality and discrimination. It examines structural and institutional sources of those processes, and considers policy, political and legal solutions to minority rights and recognition of difference in areas like gender, sexuality, race, ethnicity and disability.

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 focuses on human development, communication and understanding diversity. Students are invited to engage critically with influential 20th and 21st century paradigms which have informed understandings of human development and wellbeing. Students are introduced to the scope of social work practice, including thinking about the importance of community and social connectedness.

This unit of study focuses on a range of social perspectives on mental health. It introduces students to mental health issues commonly experienced in contemporary society, including depression, anxiety, schizophrenia, drug and alcohol addiction, self-harm and suicidality. It also explores several contextual issues surrounding the topic of mental illness, including the social determinants of mental illness, labelling and stigma, working with young people experiencing distress, working with families, the effects of child abuse and domestic violence, and grief.

In this unit students will apply advanced methods from gender and cultural studies to examine experiences of belonging and formations of community. Students will analyse how power produces and regulates communities, identities and belonging. They will question the assumption that community is based on the unity and similarity of citizens and their location in specific cultures and places, and critically examine alternatives such as difference, diaspora, and other forms of sociality. Students will evaluate different theories of community in local, national and international contexts, and in relation to feminism, democracy, cosmopolitanism and hospitality.

This unit offers a gender perspective on human rights, with a focus on gender and insecure international contexts. The unit covers themes related to the challenges of pursuing human rights, violations of human rights, and the role of civil society groups in advocating human rights. Attention will be given to the gendered nature of human rights and to specific issues that impact men and women differently when it comes to human rights protection and promotion.

Builds on students' knowledge of Australian politics to examine the background, context, conduct and implications of politics relevant to Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander communities, and policy affecting indigenous Australians. Explores aspects of inclusion and exclusion of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people from the formal political system; internal power relations within and between communities, social movements and representative bodies; compare Australian indigenous politics with those of other nations, and; look at a range of policy areas.

In this unit students critically examine race and racism and their impacts on Indigenous and non-Indigenous Australians. Students consider theories of structural and cultural violence; how racism is linked to poverty, justice and human rights; critical whiteness theory; and race representation. With an emphasis on Indigenous Australia, students gain an understanding of visible and invisible racism and skills for unmasking racism in a process of constructive individual and social change.

Our bodies are an important way we interact with society. Our identities, interactions with power and social and political institutions and even our leisure are mediated through and upon the body. Drawing on the expertise and research interests of a team of staff members, we explore various sociological perspectives relating to the body in society.

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.