LEGL3333 Social Problems and the Law

2016

4.5

1 x 2-hour seminar weekly

9 units of second level LEGL topics

JUSS3333 has been successfully completed

This topic will bring together the various skills students have developed throughout their legal studies. A critical approach to law and policy is adopted in this topic with a focus on the interaction between law, policy and social problems. Using identified empirical studies students will be encouraged to explore issues from a range of diverse perspectives. Students will consider the impact of law and policy on, for example, race, class, gender, health, education and socio-economic status within a national and global context. The tensions apparent in the dynamics between often competing perspectives will be investigated in an effort to better understand the complex and often competing dynamics that contribute to the role of law and policy in defining and maintaining contemporary social problems.

The topic aims to assist students to:

• build on their skills of research and analysis working both independently and collaboratively

• integrate a range of ideas and theories, demonstrating their ability to explore complex concepts and develop ethical solutions to a range of varied problems

• produce outcomes that traverse a broad range of social, cultural and disciplinary boundaries within a public policy framework drawing on evolving knowledge and expertise

It is expected that on completion of this topic students will:

• have developed their knowledge of the complexities of policy development in the area of a contemporary social problem

• have demonstrated their ability to undertake complex research on a specific topic

• be able to apply this knowledge to collaboratively develop and deliver a professional presentation

• have planned, developed and refined an individual policy report including critical analysis of a range of relevant social, cultural and disciplinary perspectives

• have grappled, within an ethical framework, with a number of the anomalies that exist within social policy and law and have made recommendations for future directions for policy development