SY2021:04
The Transformation of Modern Societies
Townsville, Cairns
Prerequisites: SY1001 or SY1002
26 lectures, 24 tutorials. First semester.
Staff: Professor S Crook and other staff.
Australia and other advanced societies are undergoing far reaching changes that touch all aspects of social life, from work and politics to family and leisure patterns. The subject examines these changes in the light of prominent and sometimes competing sociological interpretations. The first section of the subject compares contemporary processes of change to the equally radical changes that first brought into being modern industrial societies. The second section sets the immediate context for contemporary processes of change in a review of the major structural features of the ‘affluent societies’ of the mid- to late- Twentieth Century. The third section directly confronts the question of the potential scope of contemporary processes of change, which have been analysed as a phase-shift within the framework of a still modern society, as a shift to a postmodern society and even as a movement beyond ‘society’ as such.
Learning Objectives:
- identify the major dimensions of change in Australia and other advanced societies;
- recognise the symptoms of these fundamental changes in the minutiae of day-to-day life;
- identify and distinguish between models of change drawn from sociological theory;
- apply theoretical models of change in the analysis of specific institutions and practices.
Assessment by group poster presentation in tutorial (20%); essay (30%); final examination (50%).
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