Bachelor of Arts and Bachelor of Social Work - Socio Legal Studies

The University of Sydney

This five-year degree offers a comprehensive and flexible combined degree program that qualifies you as an accredited social worker, while also allowing you to enhance your qualification with majors and minors that complement the Bachelor of Social Work. While this combined degree requires a major or minor in Sociology, or a minor in Social Policy, you can choose another major or minor in various interest areas such as diversity studies, gender studies, Aboriginal Studies, or philosophy. You'll undertake integrated studies in social sciences, social policy and social work theory and practice, with a strong emphasis on Australian and comparative social welfare studies. In the last two years of the degree all students undertake the professional social work program, which includes two fieldwork placements supervised by highly skilled and experienced practitioners in a variety of settings. We develop field education learning expectations across the program and aim to develop values, skills and knowledge for levels from beginner to a practitioner capable of meeting the Australian Association of Social Workers (AASW) Practice Standards.Socio-Legal Studies is the study of legal ideas, practices and institutions in their social, cultural and historical contexts. Examine the institutions that make and enforce laws –parliament, the courts and the police. Learn about legal practices and their impact, including arrest and imprisonment, the use of CCTV surveillance, how law has shaped the LGBTIQA plus community, Indigenous peoples’ experience of the law and policing, enforcing human rights and prosecuting international war crimes and consider the broader question of what justice is. In your first-year units you will be introduced to the key ideas and concepts that socio-legal scholars have developed to help understand the world. Understand the foundations of the Australian legal system and examine how law and society interacts by engaging with contemporary socio-legal issues. You will also become familiar with the methods and techniques that will enable you to undertake your own research. Your senior units will consolidate your grasp of theory and methods and enable you to focus on particular topics in socio-legal studies, such as the philosophy of law and justice, the changing international regime of human rights, crime and punishment and medico-legal and forensic practices. You will engage with these aspects of socio-legal studies in lectures and tutorials, but also in the real world. You will learn to write and think in socio-legal terms using essays, reports, oral group work, posters, debates, and new social media.

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