Legal Studies
Legal Studies explores the law, and its institutions and processes, in a social, economic and political context allowing students to investigate, question, and evaluate their personal view of the world and society’s collective future.
Students undertaking the Legal Studies course investigate the regulation of conduct in society and how justice is constituted in a range of contexts.
Students develop analytical and critical thinking skills and learn to question and challenge assumptions about the world around them. They develop thinking, literacy, communication, and numeracy skills that allow them to examine conflict resolution and justice issues. Students learn to develop research questions and methodologies. Furthermore, they develop skills to communicate effectively and to present logical and coherent arguments whilst critically analysing the strengths and limitations of the arguments that ground their own thinking.
Knowledge and understanding of law, legal systems, justice, and punishment empowers students to become engaged, active, and reflective citizens. In understanding a wide range of social phenomena, they develop intercultural understanding and cultural competence. The study of Legal Studies provides knowledge, skills and understanding to interpret the world, which can be utilised in a wide range of tertiary and industry pathways.
The Legal Studies course is written under the Humanities and Social Sciences Framework.
Achievement Standards for Humanities and Social Sciences courses can be found within the Framework.
Humanities and Social Sciences is the study of how people process and document the human experience and their place in it. It empowers students to better understand humankind, society and culture and communicate ideas for the future. Humanities and Social Sciences examines what it means to be human and to ask questions about society and its institutions.
By analysing how people have tried to make moral, spiritual and intellectual sense of the world, it promotes empathy and understanding. It also requires students to deal critically and logically with what can be subjective, complex and imperfect information.
Humanities and Social Sciences courses provide a context for the contemporary world and a framework for students to critically and creatively assess possible, probable and preferred futures for themselves and the world in which they live. It empowers students to make informed and reasoned decisions for the public good as citizens of a culturally diverse and complex and interdependent world.
The study of Humanities and Social Sciences promotes well-rounded, thinking, analytical young citizens equipped for the demands of the 21st Century globalised world.
Courses written under this framework focus on concepts from a discipline or draw ideas from a number of disciplines. The analytical, critical and communication skills taught in the Humanities and Social Sciences will be valuable for future study, work or profession.
Crime and Justice
Students investigate the responses of individuals and societies to social transgressions. They examine the criminalisation and punishment of conduct in various jurisdictions over time. They investigate existing law making, legal and judicial procedures and structures, including both common law and statute law. Students investigate theories of justice and punishment.
Civil Law
Students investigate civil law. They examine the origin, purpose, and scope of regulation under civil law. Students apply civil law principles and doctrines that regulate the relationships and activities of individuals and groups to a range of case studies. They evaluate conflict resolution processes to determine their fairness and efficacy, and the possibilities for reform to achieve more just outcomes.
Contemporary Issues and the Law
Students study the significance of legal rights and responsibilities in everyday life from different political, economic and social perspectives. Through the use of a range of contemporary examples, students investigate how the law attempts to balance the rights and responsibilities of the individual with the best interests of the wider community.
International Law
Students investigate the origin, institutions, and processes of international law. They examine how it might be enforced in the context of global treaties and an anarchic international system. Students investigate the impact of international law at global, national, and local levels. They consider the relevance of international law to ordinary people and the challenges they are faced with accessing international law. Students evaluate case studies of contemporary international legal processes for their fairness and efficacy, including insecurity caused by corruption, autocracy, climate change and conflict.
Independent Study
An Independent Study unit has an important place in senior secondary courses. It is a valuable pedagogical approach that empowers students to make decisions about their own learning. An Independent Study unit can be proposed by an individual student for their own independent study and negotiated with their teacher. The program of learning for an Independent Study unit must meet the unit goals and content descriptions as they appear in the course.
Independent Study units are only available to individual students in Year 12. A student can only study a maximum of one Independent Study unit in each course. Students must have studied at least three standard 1.0 units from this course. An Independent Study unit requires the principal’s written approval. Principal approval can also be sought by a student in Year 12 to enrol concurrently in an Independent Study unit and their third or fourth 1.0 unit in this course of study.
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