1 To provide the opportunity for students to develop a theoretically informed critical understanding of human societies of all kinds (present and past, Western and non-Western) and of the social organisation of the modern world through a disciplinary-based program of study in anthropology and/or sociology, and to develop an understanding of the different schools of thought and related approaches to knowledge used by these disciplines.
2 To provide students with a range of pedagogical experiences - including team taught and individually taught subjects, some more discursive, some more didactic, some more technical - using different teaching and learning methods, with a developmental logic from lectures and tutorial combinations in earlier years through to seminars.
3 To provide courses, from first year to fourth year, which build on students' interests in their society and other societies and give students the opportunity to pursue this interest to different levels and in different ways within a structured program of study.
3.1 To provide through a structured sequence of two, three or four years of study a program that enables students both to acquire more knowledge and to develop more progressively more critical and complex levels of understanding of theoretical and empirical material regarding their own and other societies, and to understand the roles of research and researchers in the production of knowledge.
3.2 To provide students taking a major sequence or honours with an opportunity to pursue their own interests in choosing particular topics and areas for study and to take some responsibility for their own intellectual development with guidance and support from staff.
4 To provide courses organised in such a way that all students come to an understanding of the central theoretical concepts and issues and main bodies of substantive knowledge in anthropology and/or sociology through a balance of core and optional subjects which allows both staff and students a considerable degree of choice in the subjects they study.
5 To encourage students both within the department (through a third stream called comparative societies) and more generally in the faculty (through centres) to pursue interdisciplinary studies in particular areas (such as cultural studies, women's studies, critical and social theory, Asian studies, Australian studies, development studies, studies of religion) alongside their discipline-specific courses.
6 To assist students to attain (to varying degrees) certain key skills and capacities that are of value in themselves and useful for employment, including the capacity to handle abstract ideas and theoretical arguments; the capacity to select appropriate information for the investigation of a topic; the capacity to analyse, interpret and evaluate data; the capacity to develop a reasoned argument and evaluate evidence for a proposition; skills in quantitative and qualitative research; and skills in the oral and written presentation of material.
7 The objective of a major sequence in anthropology, sociology or comparative societies is to provide knowledge of the concepts, theories and research methods relevant to each discipline and an opportunity for students to reach an appropriate level of understanding of the structure, culture and social practices of those societies they have chosen to study.
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