SOCI111-09S1 (C) Semester One 2009

Exploring Society

18 points

Details:
Start Date: Monday, 23 February 2009
End Date: Sunday, 28 June 2009
Withdrawal Dates
Last Day to withdraw from this course:
  • Without financial penalty (full fee refund): Sunday, 8 March 2009
  • Without academic penalty (including no fee refund): Sunday, 24 May 2009

Description

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

***Web Description***
Soci 111 introduces you to the discipline of Sociology. Sociology explores people and society. It examines our social institutions; our families, the state, and social relationships like gender and ethnicity, to help make sense of how we both experience and interpret our rapidly changing world. As you can see from the lecture schedule, sociological interest in life is wide ranging. In Exploring Society the topics covered include: gender, sexuality, sport, food, families, animals, health, death, moral panic, consumerism, and everyday technologies like mobile phones and facebook.

There are many sociologies. In this course, you will be introduced to a version that is concerned with understanding and explaining the different types of social relationships that constitute diverse social worlds, ranging from music and food to the welfare state and death. Sociologists use a variety of methods to gather information and analyse anything from major world events to seemingly mundane everyday practices. As you attend lectures and workshops in Soci 111 you will hopefully begin to grasp some of the excitement of this process of analysis. You will be involved as both participants and contributors in analysing some of the major trends and events of our time. You will be asked to make use of and extend the basic sociological method – asking questions – about taken-for-granted social worlds, activities and events. In the process, you will be introduced to critical ways of thinking, and we will encourage you to develop sociological imaginations. Such imaginations will allow you to make connections between personal experiences, and the social and historical contexts within which such experiences are produced. They will hopefully provoke you to raise questions that enable you to critically reflect on both the connections, and how you make sense of them. Whether you intend continuing in sociology or not, we hope you will find the course to be rewarding.

Learning Outcomes

***Learning Outcomes***
As a result of doing this course we hope that you will gain a greater appreciation of sociology as a discipline; that you will develop a good understanding of the scope and potential of the sociological endeavour; and that you will begin to lay a foundation of research, reading, reflection and writing skills that will stand you in good stead for involvement in further courses whether within the School of Sociology and Anthropology or not.

Timetable Note

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***General Timetable Notes***

Lecture Schedule:
1.   Feb 24     Intro. to course and themes - Camilla/Roslyn
2.   Feb 26     Intro. to course and themes - Camilla/Roslyn
3.   March 3    Sociology and Methodology - Ruth
4.   March 5    Food and bodies - Carolyn
5.   March 10  Exploring Gender - Rosemary
6.   March 12  Exploring Sexualities - Rosemary
7.   March 17  Gender & Sexualities in NZ - Rosemary
8.   March 19  Sport and bodies - Camilla
9.   March 24  Sport, race and ethnicities - Camilla
10. March 26  Food and the Family - Carolyn
11. March 31  What is a Family - Lyndon
12. April 2     Family Life in NZ - Lyndon

April 3 - April 26   Break for three weeks

13. April 28    How Animals Shape our Lives: Pets - Alison
14. April 30    How Animals Shape our Lives: Farming - Alison
15. May 5     Exploring the biomedical model - Anne
16. May 7     Biomedicine and health care - Anne
17. May 12     Is death social? - Ruth
18. May 14     Dead bodies for life - Ruth
19. May 19     Moral panic - Brenda Mackie
20. May 21     Consumption - Karyn Stewart
21. May 26     Technologies and everyday life: Mobile phone - Roslyn
22. May 28     Technologies and everyday life: Online - Roslyn
23. June 2     Sport and media: making nations - Camilla
24. June 4     Course Summary & Exam Preparation - Camilla/Roslyn

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***Tutorial Notes***

1.   March 3/5 Introduction
2.   March 10/12 Library exercise/Methods
3.   March 17/19 Gender/Sexuality
4.   March 24/26 Sport
5.   March 31/April 2 Food
6.   April 28/30 Family
7.   May 5/7 Animals
8.   May 12/14 Health
9.   May 19/21 Death
10. May 26/28 Moral panic/Consumer Society
11. June 2/4 Technology/Exam prep

Course Coordinator / Lecturer

Camilla Obel

Lecturers

Carolyn Morris , Alison Loveridge , Rosemary Ann du Plessis , Ruth McManus , Lyndon Fraser , Anne Scott and Roslyn Kerr

***General Contributor Notes***

Assessment

Assessment Due Date Percentage 
Essay 1 20%
Essay 2 30%
Tutorial Exercise 10%
Final Exam 40%


***General Assessment Notes**

Textbooks / Resources

***General Textbook Notes***
There is no textbook for this course. Instead, you can purchase a course reader from the Central Library for around $20. This reader contains articles relevant to each of the topics covered and will help you in your understanding of the lecture and workshop material.

Course links

Library portal
Pathways This course links into several school course pathways: Pathway two: Politics and Policy Pathway four: Technologies, Markets and Organisations Pathway five: Health and Science Pathway six: Kinship, Gender and Embodiment Pathway seven: Ritual and Performance

Notes

***Department Notes***
This course has no prerequisite. It should be noted, though, that the prerequisite for
advancing to 200 level is the successful completion of one 100 level courses.

***Conditions***

Indicative Fees

Domestic fee $640.00

International fee $2,670.00

* All fees are inclusive of NZ GST or any equivalent overseas tax, and do not include any programme level discount or additional course-related expenses.

For further information see Language, Social and Political Sciences .

All SOCI111 Occurrences

  • SOCI111-09S1 (C) Semester One 2009