What ever your topic choice, it needs to be firmly rooted in the perametrers of social and cultural studies. If your PIP is ABOUT (not just touching on) three or more course concepts you should be OK.

 

Note that HSC markers want to see you APPLYING concepts, not just using them. In order to do this your PIP needs to be socially and culturally concept driven. You cant just "add" technology or gender on at the end!

 

This site has heaps of very good sociological articles available! Alan MacFarlane

http://www.alanmacfarlane.com/contents_web.html

 

According to the Australian Sociological Association these books are the most influencial sociology books in Australia (2003)

• Ruling class ruling culture: studies of conflict, power and hegemony in Australian lifeConnell, R.W. (1977)

• Economic rationalism in Canberra: a nation-building state changes its mindPusey, M. (1991)

• Damned whores and God's police: the colonization of women in AustraliaSummers, A. (1975 & 2002)

• Gender and power: society, the person, and sexual politicsConnell, R.W. (1987)

• MasculinitiesConnell, R.W. (1995)

• Making the difference: schools, families and social divisionConnell, R.W., Ashenden, D.W., Kessler, S. & Dowsett, G.W. (1982)

• The body and society: explorations in social theoryTurner, B. (1984 & 1996)

• Gender at workGame, A. & Pringle, R. (1984)

• Medical dominance: the division of labour in Australian health careWillis, E. (1983 & 1989)

• Crime, shame and reintegrationBraithwaite, J. (1989)

Yr 12 stuff
Handy Links & PIP stuff

WOW! Awesome sociology "through cinema" blog!: http://www.thesociologicalcinema.com

Keep and eye on SBS "watch on demand" documentaries page - plenty of ideas and resources for SAC/PIPs
http://www.sbs.com.au/ondemand/video/2232375464/Bollywood-Star-sneak-peek#Menu:Programs.children.4

I LOVE SBS's program Insight because it models the focus group methodology SO well! And the topics are perfect for SAC students! (google it!)

The Open University - "Society" page. Great academic article on all things Society & Culture. Very British but you'll find suitable articles if you poke around.
http://www.open.edu/openlearn/society

 

Past exam papers:
http://community.boredofstudies.org/showthread.php?t=80326

Resources to Help Write your PIP
http://scansw.com.au/sc_pages/sc_pip.html

Check out the titles/topics of last year's best PIPs!
http://scansw.com.au/sc_awards/sc_awards_2011.html


Sociology for students website: http://www.sociologyguide.com/basic-concepts/index.php

 

 

Quality sociological texts that may contain ideas for your PIPs... Check out Tripple J Hack program, New Philosopher online mag, SBS on Demand, ABC Iview docos, and for marxist analysis of current affairs, Redflag.org

 

Below are some links for interesting starter reading/viewing:

 

On citizenship: http://fora.tv/2008/05/23/Engaged_Citizenship_in_Contemporary_Communities
On multiculturalism: http://www.thepunch.com.au/articles/multiculturalism-hasnt-failed-its-been-suffocated/
On "the internet in society" (technology/society): http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Uk8x3V-sUgU&feature=relmfu
technologyand today's society:
...challenges the idea that technology is always "progress" or a "solution" to contemporary problems... highlights how technology has created a host of its own social problems related to digital over-saturation.
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/digitalnation/view/
On time: are you past, present or future oriented? Why? http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w8aqkW2RhHw
Exam style questions on family - good practice! http://openlearn.open.ac.uk/mod/oucontent/view.php?id=407176&section=2.2
gender: masculinity, media, violence, socialisation: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3exzMPT4nGI&feature=youtu.be
gender: feminism, mass culture, stereotypes: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tnJxqRLg9x0&

A website designed for Livo students by teacher Ms Laila Gorge - great overview of theories and some good links
http://personalandsocialidentity.wordpress.com/identity-and-socialisation/

Notes from HSC markers, 2010 - good tips on how to pull in the marks! http://www.boardofstudies.nsw.edu.au/hsc_exams/hsc2010exams/notes/society-and-culture.html

media and propoganda: http://www.newphilosopher.com/articles/freedom-of-thought-the-media-and-propaganda/
Is the internet making us dumber? Are we "storing information outside of ourselves"? http://www.newphilosopher.com/articles/outsourcing-memory-the-internet-has-changed-how-we-remember/
travel: how we no longer "travel" but consume "destinations": http://www.newphilosopher.com/articles/the-lost-art-of-travel/

consumerism: Zizek on charity and consumerism: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hpAMbpQ8J7g
Waste culture: "The statistics of waste – food waste, packaging waste, electronics waste, wasted journeys – are shocking, and have economic, environmental and, perhaps increasingly, personal implications. Are we members not so much of a consumer society, but of a rubbish society? In our overflowing bid to consume and stockpile are we, ourselves, a little bit rubbish?" http://www.open.edu/openlearn/history-the-arts/history/the-decline-neighbourliness
modernity/enlightenment: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AC7ANGMy0yo&feature=relmfu
positive psychology/idealism/corporate culture: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u5um8QWWRvo&feature=relmfu
technology and ideas: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NugRZGDbPFU&feature=related
technology and society: http://www.open.edu/openlearn/society/politics-policy-people/sociology/man-vs-machine
Love and relationships/kinship/modernity/crises: http://www.open.edu/openlearn/society/politics-policy-people/sociology/interrogatation-modern-love
 

and also this one:
"In this collection of audio and video podcasts, we ask how some couples manage to stay together for years, sometimes forever"
http://www.open.edu/openlearn/body-mind/enduring-love
 

conventional relationships? http://www.open.edu/openlearn/body-mind/psychology/the-gap-lovers-must-fill-what-exactly-conventional-relationship
 

Community, isolation and alienation: "The Decline of Neighbourliness": http://www.open.edu/openlearn/history-the-arts/history/the-decline-neighbourliness

Cities; private vs. public space: the impact of urban planning on society and culture: "The city makes us the people that we are... we might put in turnstiles... and the fact that they're there make us move in particular ways. So the infrastructure of the city is making us be the people we are; become the people we are; move in the cities in particular ways... (this is about) the combination of people in cities, what people call the assemblage - the subject and the object, the materiality coming together." http://www.open.edu/openlearn/society/politics-policy-people/geography/we-make-the-cities-and-the-city-makes-us

sociology of the home: architecture, social planning/policy
"In our consumer society the rhetoric and discourses around the home appear as powerful signifiers of emotional safety and desire..."
http://www.open.edu/openlearn/society/bringing-it-all-back-home

The sociology of food: class, identity, consumerism, globalisation.... http://www.open.edu/openlearn/society/elitism-wont-hold-back-the-food-revolution
Migrants, asylum seekers, social attitudes and culture:
"We are close to a paradigm shift in our approach to asylum seekers... The rule is drifting from... respect for humanity to celebration of inhumanity, from universalist idealism to parochial hostility. And all of this is seemingly supported by a new fast emerging "social consensus".
http://www.open.edu/openlearn/society/looking-through-the-glass-floor
Attitudes towards Muslims: http://www.smh.com.au/nsw/sydney-muslims-poorer-and-face--more-hostility-than-in-melbourne-20121025-288ry.html
Immigration and exclusion: This video clip concisely explains how the media's use of the word "illegal" to describe a group of people (often undocumented immigrants) becomes racially coded language and, as such, grounds for hate crimes. This film clip is part of the Drop the "I" Word Campaign; the website offers other resources related to the video clip. I find that the clip offers students a way to explore why the terms "illegal alien" and "illegal" might be problematic and how these terms are applied to certain groups of people in ways that become racial slurs. (thesociologicalcinema.com) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v6GcPft7mqU

Citizenship: "Without binding people into a body and bounding them with an authority, the state would be inconceivable. In a way, boundedness is the very condition of citizenship... Unlike academics, accountants, architects, engineers, lawyers, reporters, and teachers the ‘membership’ of citizens is strictly considered within the frontiers of the state. In fact, the very frontiers of the state become possible by defining some people as ‘its’ citizens. That it is acquired by birth, residence or blood and these bound it to the authority and territory of the nation-state constitutes citizenship." Interesting if you're looking at migration or asylum seekers... http://www.open.edu/openlearn/society/citizens-without-frontiers
For citizenship, migration and nationalism/nationhood, look up Benedict Anderson's writings on "imagined communities": http://www.english.emory.edu/Bahri/Anderson.html
Class inequality: "There is a cruel streak in contemporary politics, a meanness that has not often been so explicit. Since the youth riots of summer 2011 in London and elsewhere, the parade of hateful and vitriolic media messages have been amped up in many ways. Even strikers defending their pensions should, in the words of Jeremy Clarkson on the early evening BBC One Show 'be taken outside and executed in front of their families'."http://www.open.edu/openlearn/society/politics-policy-people/politics/hate-the-poor-the-new-politics-loathing-vitriolic-britain