SOCS244 - Difference and Diversity : Social and Sexual Health

Year

Credit points

Campus offering

Prerequisites

Unit rationale, description and aim

As individuals and as informed citizens, it is important to develop the ability to navigate information, to recognise and enact supportive behaviours, and to use evidence-based frameworks to evaluate health related issues, initiatives and interventions. This unit examines ideas and issues about human body (including sex and gender) in the context of lifespan milestones and physical and social development through these periods. Students will examine how our rapidly changing world is creating new challenges to the achievement of health of both mind and body. Building on this, the unit will develop students' capacity to talk in developmentally appropriate and safe ways with young people about reproduction, sexualities, relationships, safety, and help-seeking. This unit discusses the characteristics and connectedness of each life stage and examines the physical, cognitive and socioemotional indicators of each stage using data on the health and well-being of Australians over the life span. Considering how differences relate to culturally specific perspectives on healthy development and well-being at each stage of life the unit will look across cultures, including Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander cultures, to consider how conceptions of childhood, adolescence, adulthood, parenthood and mature age differ and influence perspectives on healthy development and well-being.

Learning outcomes

To successfully complete this unit you will be able to demonstrate you have achieved the learning outcomes (LO) detailed in the below table.

Each outcome is informed by a number of graduate capabilities (GC) to ensure your work in this, and every unit, is part of a larger goal of graduating from ACU with the attributes of insight, empathy, imagination and impact.

Explore the graduate capabilities.

On successful completion of this unit, students should be able to:

LO1 - Describe the physical, cognitive and socioemotional development milestones in childhood, adolescence, adulthood and mature age and articulate the biological and environmental factors that can affect normal healthy development at each of these stages (GA4, GA5, GA8) 

LO2 - Differentiate and relate the concepts of physical, mental and socioemotional and sexual well-being, and describe the principal factors that promote or challenge healthy development in these areas at each stage of life (GA4, GA5, GA8) 

LO3 - Articulate differences across cultures, including Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Australians in conceptions of childhood, adolescence, adulthood, parenthood and mature age, and how these differences relate to culturally specific perspectives on healthy development and well-being at each stage of life (GA1, GA4, GA5, GA8, GA9) 

LO4 - Examine and demonstrate understanding how our rapidly changing world is creating new challenges to the achievement of health of both mind and body (e.g. ageing population, sexual identification and practice, modern illnesses, extended family) (GA4, GA8) 

LO5 - Demonstrate culturally appropriate knowledge in showing capacity to talk in developmentally appropriate and safe ways with young people about reproduction, sexualities, relationships, safety, and help-seeking (GA4, GA5, GA7, GA8, GA9) 

Graduate attributes

GA1 - demonstrate respect for the dignity of each individual and for human diversity 

GA4 - think critically and reflectively 

GA5 - demonstrate values, knowledge, skills and attitudes appropriate to the discipline and/or profession 

GA7 - work both autonomously and collaboratively 

GA8 - locate, organise, analyse, synthesise and evaluate information 

GA9 - demonstrate effective communication in oral and written English language and visual media 

Content

Topics will include: 

• Methods used to study human development and well-being 
• Cultural connectedness to health and well-being (including that of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Australians). Topics will cover biological, cognitive and socioemotional understandings of human development across the life span 
• Positive and negative factors that affect physical, social and emotional well-being of Australians at each life stage (e.g. stress, trauma, relationships, addiction, community and environment) 
• Data that reflects the documented realities of Australian well-being across the life span, including urban and remote Indigenous Australians  
• Biological, behavioural and physical determinants of health, including risks, rights and sexual health 
• Government and non-government programs relating to youth health and wellbeing and ways to collect, analyse and interpret youth attitudes to health and wellbeing.  
• Methods of talking in developmentally appropriate and safe ways with young people about reproduction, sexuality, relationships, safety, and help-seeking. 
• Sex education and sexual abuse prevention models that may be used to address the safety needs of children and young people  
• Sexual diversity and identification. Topics will include gender dysphoria, transgender and sexuality. Health and wellbeing issues that affect the LGBTQI+ community will be examined.  
• Contemporary issues within the well-being sphere, including modern and alternate medicine (Western and non-western), health disorders and social trends for body modification 
• Ageing, life expectancy across the Australian demographic and the impacts of an ageing population 

Learning and teaching strategy and rationale

This unit engages students in active learning activities, such as reading, writing, discussion and problem-solving to promote analysis, synthesis and evaluation of class content in the context of lectures, where ideas are presented to students and tutorials where ideas are explored and discussed. Students build skills in appropriate communication and use case studies to explore how what they have learned applies to real world situations.  

This is a 10-credit point unit and has been designed to ensure that the time needed to complete the required volume of learning to the requisite standard is approximately 150 hours in total across the semester. To achieve a passing standard in this unit, students will find it helpful to engage in the full range of learning activities and assessments utilised in this unit. The learning and teaching and assessment strategies include a range of approaches to support your learning such as reading, reflection, discussion, webinars, podcasts, video etc. 

Assessment strategy and rationale

In order to pass this unit, students are required to achieve a final grade of 50% or better as an aggregate of all points from assessment tasks completed in this unit. A variety of assessment tasks have been designed to meet the learning outcomes of this unit and to ensure the development of graduate attributes.  

To assist this, the following assessments tasks have been devised: 

The written task/s are designed to test knowledge of content from across the semester in lectures, tutorials, readings. Students will be required to apply knowledge to test questions, case studies and written scenarios that relate to childhood, adolescence, adulthood and mature age and different factors that relate to physical, mental and socioemotional and sexual well-being. This task tests learning outcomes one, two and three. 

The second task may be in a variety of forms and the lecturer may require it to be in a written or digital form or a portfolio. This task requires students to develop communication skills in writing about or discussing matters related to sex, sex education, sexual identities and health and/or well-being and prevention of sexual abuse. This task assesses learning outcomes four and five 

The oral presentation may be conducted in class or online via LEO where students will demonstrate mastery of a sub-topic within the content covered by the unit relating to different stages in life and physical, cognitive, socioemotional, biological, environmental and culturally specific perspectives determine perceptions and experiences of healthy development and well-being. This assesses learning outcomes one, two and three. 

The order of assessment tasks may be altered with permission from the Course Implementation Committee. 

Overview of assessments

Representative texts and references

Anderson, P., (2013) Silent Body – Vibrant Mind, Melbourne: Brolga Publishing  

Boyd, D., & Bee, H. L. (2015). Lifespan Development (6th ed.). Pearson.  

Brannon, L. and Feist, J., (2017) Introduction to Health Psychology, Frenchs Forest, Pearson Education Australia  

Donatelle, R. J., (2016) Access to Health (12th ed.), Pearsons Higher Ed USA 

Dudgeon, P., Purdie, N., Walker, R., Calma, T., Australia. Department of the Prime Minister Cabinet issuing body, Australian Council for Educational Research, & Kulunga Research Network. (2014). Working Together: Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Mental Health and Wellbeing Principles and Practice (Second ed.). 

Hoffnung, M., Hoffnung, R.J., Seifert, K.L., Seifert, K.L., Burton Smith, R., Hine, A., Ward, L., and Pause, C. (2012) Lifespan Development: A Chronological Approach, (2nd Australasian ed.), Milton Qld: Wiley.   

Jones, J., and Creedy, D. (2012) Health and Human Behaviour, Oxford University Press 

Newman, B.N., & Newman, P.R. (2018). Development Through Life. A psychosocial approach (11th ed.). Wadsworth. 

Allen, L., Rasmussen, M., & SpringerLink. (2017). The Palgrave Handbook of Sexuality Education, London: Palgrave Macmillan. 

Santrock, J. (2016). Essentials of Life-span Development (2nd ed.). McGraw-Hill.