Admission and Unit Information - Graduate Diploma in Social Science
Admission
Applicants must have successfully completed an undergraduate degree or postgraduate qualification in any discipline.
Applications from Australian and New Zealand citizens and holders of permanent resident visas must be made via the Universities Admissions Centre (UAC).
Applicants who have undertaken studies overseas may have to provide proof of proficiency in English. Local and International applicants who are applying through the Universities Admissions Centre (UAC) will find details of minimum English proficiency requirements and acceptable proof on the UAC website. Local applicants applying directly to UWS should also use the information provided on the UAC website.
Overseas qualifications must be deemed by the Australian Education International - National Office of Overseas Skills Recognition (AEI-NOOSR) to be equivalent to Australian qualifications in order to be considered by UAC and UWS.
Course Structure
Qualification for this award requires the successful completion of 60 credit points consisting of 40 credit points of core units and 20 credit points of postgraduate elective units:
Core Units
Research for Practice explores the role of research in generating professional bodies of knowledge and the epistemological, ethical, political, theoretical and methodological underpinnings of such knowledge. Students select approaches to research relevant to their practice domains and apply them, conceptually, to contemporary research problems.
Theories for Critical Practice
This unit examines social and practitioner theories that inform and provide critical perspectives upon a range of disciplines and professions. Students will reflect upon the relationships between theory, social practice and professional practice. The unit examines these relationships by deploying such key constructs as: subjectivity, agency and identity; power and resistance; class, economy and consumption; social change; globalisation and nationhood; gender and sexuality; race and colonisation; governmentality and social discipline; mobilities and place. Students will consider the social, political and discursive processes through which theories are made and applied, and how theories limit and create possibilities for research and practice.
This unit builds on the work undertaken in the previous units 101887 Research for Practice and 101888 Theories for Critical Practice. It is designed to extend students’ critical practice in their specialist field through an integrated project. The project will demonstrate students’ knowledge, understanding and skills in bringing together theory and research and practice in their professional field of work. Students will have the opportunity to work together to support each other and extend each other’s work
The remaining 20 credit points are to be selected from units within the specialisations included in the Master of Social Science or (in consultation with the Academic Course Advisor) from other postgraduate level units offered across the university.
