200-level

POLS206
Introduction to Public Policy and Policy Analysis
Description
How do governments address real-world problems such as health crises, climate change, and social inequity? Public policy broadly refers to government goals, decisions, and actions/inactions made on behalf of the public to address perceived issues, and policy analysis entails examining and evaluating the available options. This course introduces students to public policy and policy analysis, with an overview of power and rationality, colonialism, institutions, theories of policy change, citizen participation, policy learning, and more. Over the term we will devote particular focus to Aotearoa/New Zealand, Australia, and small pacific states. This course is part of the public policy subdiscipline of the Political Science degree, is co-coded with Human Services, and is also relevant to a number of other degrees across the university.
Occurrences
Semester One 2026
Points
15 points
Prerequisites
Any 15 points at 100 level from HLTH, HSRV, or POLS, or any 60 points at 100 level from the Schedule V of the BA, or LAWS, GEOG, or the Schedule V of the BCom.
COMS207
Social Media
Description
This course contains practical work in the community and groupwork. The course prepares students to do public communication in a rapidly changing media environment. The first half of the course explores how a range of social media platforms work and how professional communicators are attempting to use it. Topics include networks, online community, social media analytics and social media campaigns. In the second half of the course students apply these ideas in small-group projects for a community organisation or company. This course is available only to students enrolled in the Bachelor of Communication.
Occurrences
Semester Two 2026
Points
15 points
Prerequisites
15 points COMS or 60 points BC Schedule V. Subject to approval by the Head of Department.
Restrictions
COMS222 (2008-2012), DIGI207
HSRV208
Gender Sensitivity and the Human Services
Description
This course provides students with the opportunity to critically investigate shifting socio-cultural constructions of gender. Students are introduced to theories, experiences and issues of gender, to think about how gender matters in the choices and opportunities available to us; in shaping ideas regarding individual and social well-being; the ways in which gender is experienced, defined, validated, and reworked.
Occurrences
Semester One 2026
Semester One 2026 (Distance)
Points
15 points
Prerequisites
15 points at 100 level in HSRV AND 15 points from either Schedule V to the BA, Schedule C to the BSW(Hons), Schedules C or E to the BCJ; OR 60 points from the BA, BSW(Hons) or BCJ.
Restrictions
HSRV308
HSRV210
Gender, Crime and Social Theory
Description
This course considers a range of explanatory theories emanating from a range of disciplines that contribute to current understandings of gender, crime, deviance, social theory and social control. Theories and constructions of crime, deviance, violence and gender will be discussed as these relate to gendered experiences within and without the criminal justice system.
Occurrences
Semester Two 2026
Semester Two 2026 (Distance)
Points
15 points
Prerequisites
30 points at 100 level in HSRV; OR 60 points at 100-level from Schedule V to the BA, BSW Hons, BCJ or B Hlth Sc or BYCL.
Restrictions
HSRV303, HSRV310
PACS211
The Transnational Pacific
Description
This course explores the contemporary Pacific with a special focus on the dynamic and complex interplay of its cultures, identities, and economies. Students will use the lens of transnationalism, to examine the historical and contemporary movement of people, ideas, and resources across the Pacific Ocean, and reflect on how these flows have shaped societies locally, regionally, and globally. Students will engage with themes such as power relations, decolonisation, migration, diaspora, gender, art, sport, cultural hybridity, security, racism, the impacts of climate change, the digital Pacific, and future thinking. Through interdisciplinary readings, case studies, and critical discussions, this course offers a comprehensive understanding of the Pacific peoples’ resilience and innovation in the face of global challenges. Embedded in the course are the perspectives of several community, national, and regional leaders whose expertise will be sought to speak on the course themes.
Occurrences
Semester One 2026
Semester One 2026 (Distance)
Special non-calendar-based Four 2026 (UC Online)
Points
15 points
Prerequisites
Any 45 points at 100-level
POLS212
Global and International Political Economy
Description
This course examines the politics of global economic relations. It will focus on issues of international trade, the international monetary system, and foreign investment-and the relationship of each to both domestic and international politics. Among the specific topics to be discussed are: trade and protectionism, the role and performance of global institutions such as the IMF, World Bank, and WTO, the significance of multinational corporations, efforts at regional economic integration such as the EU and NAFTA, the relationship of the world economy to the economic development of poor countries, the emergence of new economic players such as China and India, and the relationship between economic strength and political power.
Occurrences
Semester Two 2026
Points
15 points
Prerequisites
Any 15 points at 100 level from POLS, or any 60 points at 100 level from the Schedule V of the BA, or LAWS, GEOG, or the Schedule V of the BCom.
PACS221
Pacific Sustainability and Climate Resilience
Description
This course examines some of the ways in which community-based indigenous innovation has been used to build up strategies of adaptation and resilience in the Pacific’s oceanic communities. The course offers a critique of the deficit narratives that often characterise Pacific peoples as inherently susceptible to failure, and instead frames sustainability, resilience, and innovation as core features of Pacific peoples’ knowledge and practice for the millennia that they have occupied the Pacific Ocean - the largest single geographical space on the planet. The course acknowledges the rich histories of Pacific communities’ resourcefulness in adapting to environmental pressures and changes. It also explores such aspects of sustainability and resilience as adaptive social organization, coastal management, environmental restoration, food security, adapted building and architecture, and sustainable farming, and reviews how these are used to combat unsustainable economic practices, as well as rising sea levels, extreme weather systems, and other calamities brought about by human induced climate change. Several themes run through the course including the politics and economics of climate change, climate finance, mobility, food sovereignty, health and wellbeing, cultural safe-guarding and transformation, and socio-ecological justice. The course also reflects on the ways that indigenous knowledge, humanities, science and technology can work together to respond to the climate crisis and other natural and human created challenges in the Pacific.
Occurrences
Semester Two 2026
Semester Two 2026 (Distance)
Points
15 points
Prerequisites
Any 45 points at 100-level
HIST243
Kiwi Culture
Description
This course explores the invention of kiwi culture from first Maori contact with Europeans to Peter Jackson's Lord of the Rings films. Key questions asked are: How has national identity formed? What kiwi traditions have emerged? Who is a New Zealander and who is excluded from dominant concepts of nation? What aspects of culture are indigenous and how much is copied from overseas? Topics under examination include key defining moments, peacekeeping, sport and leisure, food, beauty, fashion, arts and crafts, literature and music, kiwi icons, kiwiana, overseas fame, sexuality and morality, environmentalism, national disasters, immigration and multiculturalism.
Occurrences
Semester One 2026
Points
15 points
Prerequisites
Any 15 points at 100 level in HIST or CLAS120, or any 60 points at 100 level from the Schedule V of the BA.
Restrictions
HIST352
MAOR285
Modern Histories of Ngai Tahu
Description
The story of Ngai Tahu is a fascinating example of a small impoverished community of tribal members who by the 1970s had been reduced to a membership of less than 400. Within two decades this tribe had emerged as one of the largest corporations in the South Island with a tribal membership of over 40,000. It is the largest land-owner in the South Island with significant interests in fisheries and tourism. Explaining how and why this happened will be one of the core themes of this course. The first part of this course will look at some of the early history of Ngai Tahu through to their movement from its pre-contact era to initial contact with early explorers, the settler government and the subsequent land transactions that ran from 1844 to 1864. The second part of this course will trace Ngai Tahu’s claim over nearly 150 years and the concurrent development and implementation of corporate structures. It will then turn to an overview of how Ngai Tahu and the Crown negotiated one of the largest Treaty settlement packages in the nation's history, but also what opportunities and challenges that brings today.
Occurrences
Semester One 2026
Points
15 points
Prerequisites
Any 15 points at 100 level from HIST, MAOR, or TREO, or any 60 points at 100 level from the Schedule V of the BA.
Restrictions
HIST292

Not Offered Courses in 2026

200-level

CULT202
Cultural Politics/Cultural Activism
Description
This course offers students a grounding in Cultural Studies theories and methods. It examines the political dynamics and historical foundations of contemporary culture, and the strategic roles that it can play as a force for change. Drawing from a wide variety of examples, it focuses on how culture - as a process, as a practice, and as the production of meaning - functions as a battleground in the assignment of and struggle for social power.
Occurrences
Not offered 2026, offered in 2023 , 2024 , 2025
For further information see CULT202 course details
Points
15 points
POLS206
Introduction to Public Policy and Policy Analysis
Description
How do governments address real-world problems such as health crises, climate change, and social inequity? Public policy broadly refers to government goals, decisions, and actions/inactions made on behalf of the public to address perceived issues, and policy analysis entails examining and evaluating the available options. This course introduces students to public policy and policy analysis, with an overview of power and rationality, colonialism, institutions, theories of policy change, citizen participation, policy learning, and more. Over the term we will devote particular focus to Aotearoa/New Zealand, Australia, and small pacific states. This course is part of the public policy subdiscipline of the Political Science degree, is co-coded with Human Services, and is also relevant to a number of other degrees across the university.
Occurrences
POLS206-26S2 (C)
Semester Two 2026 - Not offered
For further information see POLS206 course details
Points
15 points
Prerequisites
Any 15 points at 100 level from HLTH, HSRV, or POLS, or any 60 points at 100 level from the Schedule V of the BA, or LAWS, GEOG, or the Schedule V of the BCom.