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  2. Society, Culture, and Health [SCH1101]

School: Kurongkurl Katitjin

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

    Society, Culture, and Health

  • Unit Code

    SCH1101

  • Year

    2026

  • Enrolment Period

    1

  • Version

    4

  • Credit Points

    15

  • Full Year Unit

     N

  • Mode of Delivery

    On Campus
    Online

  • Unit Coordinator

    Ms Janelle CADDY

Description

This unit explores cross-cultural understanding through development of lifelong learning principles informed by professional and ethical considerations within health systems. Students will build culturally reflexive awareness by practising critical reflection of health practitioner knowledge, skills, attitudes, behaviours and power differentials to establish culturally safe environments for all concerned. Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander health will be the primary focus of the unit, however, cultural safety and cultural capability will be applied in several additional contexts including the significance of: individualism and collectivism, gender and sexuality, spirituality and religion, and attitudes toward mortality.

Learning Outcomes

On completion of this unit students should be able to:

  1. Critically discuss how an individual’s culture influences behaviour, communication and attitudes.
  2. Practice self-reflection as a tool to identify personal, institutional and systemic bias.
  3. Explain the impact of social determinants on health, especially with regard for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples.
  4. Apply strengths-based strategies for communicating with people from culturally diverse backgrounds.
  5. Apply key terms and definitions in the context of delivering culturally safe health care.

Unit Content

  1. Introduction to culture through the examination of historic and contemporary beliefs, behaviour, identification, and organisation at individual and collective levels.
  2. Sociological, anthropological and philosophical explorations of how culture and knowledge are produced, examining power, communication, mediation, institutions and the construction of the self, especially in health care systems.
  3. Culturally safe healthcare for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples: cultural and professional expectations.
  4. Building cultural reflexivity through congruent behaviours and attitudes required of health workers to effectively deliver safe, accessible and responsive healthcare free of racism, bigotry, and other forms of discrimination in situations involving inter- and intra-cultural difference.

Learning Experience

ON-CAMPUS

Students will attend on campus classes as well as engage in learning activities through ECU's LMS

City CampusJoondalupSouth West (Bunbury)
Semester 1Not Offered13 x 1 hour lectureNot Offered
Semester 1Not Offered13 x 2 hour tutorialNot Offered
Semester 2Not Offered13 x 1 hour lectureNot Offered
Semester 2Not Offered13 x 2 hour tutorialNot Offered

For more information see the Semester Timetable

ONLINE

Students will engage in learning experiences via ECU’s LMS as well as additional ECU learning technologies

Additional Learning Experience Information

Unit content is enhanced through Aboriginal lecturers and guest speakers for key topics.

Assessment

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

ON CAMPUS
TypeDescription
Reflective Practice ^Reflective practice
ONLINE
TypeDescription
Reflective Practice ^Reflective practice

^ 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 Procedure - 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 Procedure - for more information visit https://askus2.ecu.edu.au/s/article/000003318.

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