Society and Culture
Society and Culture
Society and Culture was an exciting new offering at Barker College from 2020.
The main goal of the syllabus is to encourage students’ growth in social and cultural literacy and to develop a clear understanding of the interaction of people, societies, cultures, environments and time. In a fast-paced, increasingly globalised world, what could be more important?
Society and Culture draws on cross-disciplinary concepts and upon social research methods from anthropology; communication; cultural and media studies; philosophy; social psychology; and sociology; hence its value as a subject that encourages students to think out of the box, to inquire and to communicate effectively.
Student Advice About Society and Culture
Why chose Society and Culture as an HSC subject?
Highlights from studying Society and Culture
How did you choose the subject for your Personal Interest Project (PIP)?
Contact
Head of Department: Matthew Lloyd
Email: mlloyd@barker.nsw.edu.au
Year 11
Society and Culture
The Preliminary Course studies:
- Persons - the individual human; relationships with other persons and with society, culture and the environment through time
- Society - human relationships from small groups to large systems
- Culture - knowledge shared by members of groups and systems, reflected in their customs, values, laws, arts, technologies and artefacts
- Environment - settings where people live and work, the interaction between people and their environment, people’s perceptions of the environment, and their actions to improve it
- Time - its continuous passage; perceptions of the past, present and future
Power - ability to influence or persuade others to a point of view or action to which they would not normally agree - Authority - the rights to make decisions and to determine, adjudicate or settle issues and disputes
- Identity - sense of self formed over time - personal, social and cultural
- Gender - socially constructed differences between genders
- Technologies - tools that we use to assist our interactions in society and
- Globalisation - the integration and the sharing of goods, capital, services, knowledge, leisure, sport, ideas and culture between countries brought about by improved technologies.
The HSC Course consists of a Core with two components:
- Personal Interest Project and
- Social and Cultural Continuity and Change
and two Depth Studies chosen from the following: (those in bold are our current choices) - Popular Culture
- Belief Systems and Ideologies
- Social Inclusion and Exclusion
- Social Conformity and Nonconformity
Assessment Structure
Assessment Overview for each year group
Assessment in the Preliminary course is weighted as follows:
- Knowledge and understanding of course content – 50%
- Application and evaluation of social and cultural research methods – 30%
- Communication of information, ideas and issues in appropriate forms – 20%
These facets will be spread across the three key topic areas of The Social and Cultural World, (a secondary research based assessment worth 30%) Personal and Social Identity (mainly primary research, but also some secondary worth 30%) and Intercultural Communication (included in the Preliminary Certificate examination – 40%).