About this major

Socio-Legal Studies explores how legal ideas, policies, institutions, and practices operate within their broader social, cultural, and historical contexts. You examine how law is created and interpreted—by parliament, the courts, and judges—and consider deeper questions about why law exist and whether it truly maintains social order.

This Major encourages you to think critically about how law interacts with major social issues, including indigeneity, gender, sexuality, race and ethnicity, class, the environment, and technology. These topics are explored both within Australia and in international contexts. You also engage with human rights instruments and reflect on the broader concept of justice.

In your first year, you’re introduced to foundational socio-legal concepts and theories. You study the structure of the Australian legal system and explore how law and society shape each other through current debates. A key focus is understanding how policy is developed, how it influences legislation, and whether it achieves its intended outcomes.

You also begin developing research skills, learning methods and techniques to support your own investigations. In senior units, you build on this foundation and explore more specialised topics—such as the philosophy of law and justice, the global human rights regime, and the relationship between law and social change.

You engage with these ideas through lectures, tutorials, and real-world applications. You develop your ability to think and communicate in socio-legal terms through essays, policy reports, group discussions, posters, and debates. By graduation, you’ll be ready to critically analyse legal systems and contribute meaningfully to discussions about law and justice.

Socio-Legal Studies provides an excellent foundation for future work in legal or policy settings and complements studies in Criminology and Sociology.

For more information on the program structure and content including unit of study information, please refer to the Arts and Social Sciences Handbook.

This major is offered by the Discipline of Sociology and Criminology.