Social Enquiry

Intensive Social Enquiry introduces students to the discipline of Sociology, which represents the study of people and cultures in industrial societies. This course provides an understanding of sociological concepts for examining social structures and interaction in everyday life. In teaching how to use the sociological imagination, the complex dynamics of social interaction will be uncovered. The course will examine the impact of social roles, social functions, social inequality and class, on people's lives as well as what people do when they are interacting on a face-to-face level. This viewpoint challenges the taken-for-granted, or commonsense, view of the world. It will also examine topic areas such as:
• Gender (how construction of masculinity and femininity varies across time and culture)
• Race & Ethnicity (appreciation of cultural difference and how people are affected by stereotyping and racial discrimination)
• Health (how health is not random but a culturally constructed experience impacted by class, ethnicity, age and gender)
• Education (how different theories provide different explanations for educational inequality)
• Media (how ownership and control influences content and how advertisements can be deconstructed)
• Social Research Methods (how social research is carried out in the social sciences)


Social Enquiry prepares students for tertiary study by teaching them to take a scientific approach to examining social life in contemporary society.