Engaging Communities through Social Innovation

This course partners with communities to work collaboratively to affect meaningful change. This course would suit those students with an interest in active citizenship, social activism, community engagement, and social innovation with our local or global communities. Students will critically engage with the theories of volunteering, service and experiential learning. A variety of innovative multi-modal experiences including field trips, generating creative content, and team projects, will enable you to evaluate the impact of your own community engagement.

15 points

Introduction to Youth Leadership: Leading the Self

What is the role of 'the self' in youth and community leadership? What are the personal dispositions required for youth and community leadership and how might these be nurtured within, for and by the self, and/or by others? In this course, students will explore self-leadership from contemporary psychological, philosophical, cultural, and/or any other theoretical perspective/s relevant to their situation and to contemporary Aotearoa. Kaupapa Maori approaches will be explored, as part of which students will be required to have experienced a stay on the noho marae (or alternative ).

15 points

People, Places and Environments

This course draws on the insights of human geography to deepen your understanding of how people make places and shape environments. We examine the economic, social and cultural processes that create contemporary places and also consider their possible futures. Through practical work, you will learn some of the key methods and techniques available for describing and analyzing how places change.

15 points

GEOG107

Exploring Society

An introduction to the major themes in contemporary sociology in a way that is relevant to New Zealand culture and society.

15 points

Land Journeys and Ethics

Informed by experiential education approaches, students will complete a weekend backpacking trip with instructors as part of the overall course and use reflections from these experiences, in conjunction with coursework on human-nature relationships, to critically analyse and develop a personal land ethic. The field trip explores the concept of wilderness in land ethics through a direct experience of actual wilderness. The course has a focus on bi-culturally competent and globally connected understandings of the relationships between humans and nature.

15 points

TEPE112, SPCO126

Ethics, Politics and Justice

How we should live our lives is the most important question of all. What makes our actions right or wrong? Is it our culture, our emotions, facts about the world, or God's commands? Are pleasure and happiness all that really matters? What should we do when justice and freedom conflict with happiness or with each other? Should we always obey the law? Is taxation legalised theft? This course introduces students to moral and political philosophy by examining ideas and arguments about how we should live our personal, social and political lives.

15 points

Tuakiri : Culture and Identity

What does it mean to live in Aotearoa/New Zealand in the 21st century? This course examines identity as a lived experience for Maori and non-Maori and how it shapes our thinking at individual, organisation and systemic levels in this country. The course also focusses on contemporary issues arising from identity tensions, enabling students to apply insights to effect positive social change in order to work effectively in a bicultural manner.

15 points