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n
social justice;
 Students develop understandings of Multiculturalism, critical
multiculturalism, multicultural education; anti‐racist education;
 Develop understandings of Sexuality, heterosexism, homophobia and
anti‐ homophobic education;
 Develop understandings of ‘Race’, racism, Aboriginal youth, NESB and refugees.
The Diversity, Social Justice & Equity unit is taught in blended mode with a combination of faceto‐
face and online sessions. There are weekly readings that support the unit content.
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Studying Sociology
The following excerpt from the Monash University provides a useful summary of what it
means to study a sociology subject such as Diversity, Social Justice & Equity:
A sociological perspective involves:
• using sociological theories to understand your social world
• questioning assumptions and viewing your social world as the object of scientific study
• using sociological concepts and terminology.
Taking a sociological perspective means, therefore, being able to stand outside your
social world and looking at it as though you have never seen it before, examining it as
an object of scientific study. In doing so, you will use sociological theory to understand
social phenomena; you will question your own preconceived ideas and assumptions;
and apply sociological concepts to familiar phenomena.
USING SOCIOLOGICAL THEORY
To have a sociological perspective is to look at your social world in terms of the major
sociological theories. Generally speaking, there are three main strands in Sociological
theory: Functionalism, Marxism and Critical Theory, and Symbolic Interactionism (there
are also subgroups and combinations of these). Sociologists generally examine social
interactions and institutions in terms of social power and the political (in the sense of
who has power over others, who controls what, who doesn't have it) and how these
social factors shape or determine to some extent this group or this individual's
behaviours. A sociological perspective looks at the impact of social factors such as
age, gender, ethnic group, socioeconomic group, cultural group, national group,
geographical location, occupational group, education, and so on.
QUESTIONING ASSUMPTIONS
The other part of acquiring a sociological perspective is to break the set of
assumptions we have about our social world. You need to be able to stand outside
your own ideological frameworks and see the everyday and the ordinary as unfamiliar
and the object of scientific study. Students often have difficulty with this because they
are dealing with familiar material, and may think it is simpler that it is. In many ways, it
is much easier for an anthropologist to make objective observations about a culture
because it is a culture that is foreign to them; they sit outside it. This is probably the
key problem for our students; that is, to be able to reflect on what is familiar.
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USING SOCIOLOGICAL CONCEPTS AND TERMINOLOGY
There are a series of concepts that are specific to Sociology that students have to
come to grips with. For example, most students would not previously have come
across the concept of "anomie", a sociological term that means an absence of rules of
behaviour (or norms). Now, there are no layperson's terms for these concepts, so
students have to ac