School: Arts and Humanities

This unit information may be updated and amended immediately prior to semester. To ensure you have the correct outline, please check it again at the beginning of semester.

  • Unit Title

    Advocating and Activating Social Change
  • Unit Code

    SCG6200
  • Year

    2026
  • Enrolment Period

    1
  • Version

    1
  • Credit Points

    20
  • Full Year Unit

    N
  • Mode of Delivery

  • Unit Coordinator

    Dr John SUTCLIFFE

Description

Driving systemic social change demands skilful political knowledge and methods for effectiveness. This unit equips students to navigate complex social and political landscapes, focusing on activating community partnerships for strategic advocacy at the political level to progress policy change. Students explore how to engage with policymakers, balance pressure with diplomacy, and leverage networks for effective impact and social change. Through policy analysis, role-playing, and guest speaker sessions, students will develop practical skills to lead social change for social benefit.

Learning Outcomes

On completion of this unit students should be able to:

  1. Critically analyse complex social, political, and economic systems, and evaluate diverse social change theories and strategies, demonstrating and advanced understanding of power dynamics, intersectional disadvantage, and ethical considerations in social change leadership.
  2. Collaborate and communicate with diverse stakeholders, including community members, policymakers, and organisational partners, utilising co-design principles and participatory methodologies to foster inclusive and sustainable social change initiatives.
  3. Critically engage with Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander knowledges, leadership practices, and community strengths to inform culturally responsive approaches to social change that respect Indigenous sovereignty and promote self-determination to foster ethical allyship across culturally diverse settings.

Unit Content

  1. The complexities of policy, legislation and social change.
  2. Methods of engaging policy makers.
  3. Upholding sovereignty and self-determination in advocacy design.
  4. Critical narratives in capacity building approaches to advocacy.

Assessment

GS2 GRADING SCHEMA 2 Used for Undifferentiated Pass/Fail units inc. practical units or work-integrated learning

Students please note: The marks and grades received by students on assessments may be subject to further moderation. All marks and grades are to be considered provisional until endorsed by the relevant School Progression Panel.

ONLINE
TypeDescription
Portfolio ^Portfolio entries: Policy analysis, lobbying campaign design, role play

^ Mandatory to Pass


Disability Standards for Education (Commonwealth 2005)

For the purposes of considering a request for Reasonable Adjustments under the Disability Standards for Education (Commonwealth 2005), inherent requirements for this subject are articulated in the Unit Description, Learning Outcomes and Assessment Requirements of this entry. The University is dedicated to provide support to those with special requirements. Further details on the support for students with disabilities or medical conditions can be found at the Access and Inclusion website.

Assessment

Students please note: The marks and grades received by students on assessments may be subject to further moderation. Informal vivas may be conducted as part of an assessment task, where staff require further information to confirm the learning outcomes have been met. All marks and grades are to be considered provisional until endorsed by the relevant School Progression Panel.

Academic Integrity

Integrity is a core value at Edith Cowan University, and it is expected that ECU students complete their assessment tasks honestly and with acknowledgement of other people's work as well as any generative artificial intelligence tools that may have been used. This means that assessment tasks must be completed individually (unless it is an authorised group assessment task) and any sources used must be referenced.

Breaches of academic integrity can include:

Plagiarism

Copying the words, ideas or creative works of other people or generative artificial intelligence tools, without referencing in accordance with stated University requirements. Students need to seek approval from the Unit Coordinator within the first week of study if they intend to use some of their previous work in an assessment task (self-plagiarism).

Unauthorised collaboration (collusion)

Working with other students and submitting the same or substantially similar work or portions of work when an individual submission was required. This includes students knowingly providing others with copies of their own work to use in the same or similar assessment task(s).

Contract cheating

Organising a friend, a family member, another student or an external person or organisation (e.g. through an online website) to complete or substantially edit or refine part or all of an assessment task(s) on their behalf.

Cheating in an exam

Using or having access to unauthorised materials in an exam or test.

Serious outcomes may be imposed if a student is found to have committed one of these breaches, up to and including expulsion from the University for repeated or serious acts.

ECU's policies and more information about academic integrity can be found on the student academic integrity website.

All commencing ECU students are required to complete the Academic Integrity Module.

Assessment Extension

In some circumstances, Students may apply to their Unit Coordinator to extend the due date of their Assessment Task(s) in accordance with ECU's Assessment, Examination and Moderation Procedures - for more information visit https://askus2.ecu.edu.au/s/article/000001386.

Special Consideration

Students may apply for Special Consideration in respect of a final unit grade, where their achievement was affected by Exceptional Circumstances as set out in the Assessment, Examination and Moderation Procedures - for more information visit https://askus2.ecu.edu.au/s/article/000003318.

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