University of Waikato

This course examines the impact intersectional relationships between race, gender, class, migration, and sexuality have on individuals. It explores how interlocking social inequalities change and are reproduced through what sociologists call “inequality-producing mechanisms,” which function simultaneously to produce the outcomes we observe in the lives of individuals, groups, and in society. To understand and address challenges and barriers associated with social inequalities and social policy, this course look at different power analysis frameworks to address core concerns related to women and men. It begins taking a detailed look at the structural and interpersonal domains of power dynamics that produce social inequalities. From this foundation, it will direct a critical lens toward major challenges to understand contemporary issues. 

This course examines the comparative study of political systems. It covers relevant concepts and theories, and  applies these learnings to case studies from around the world.

This course examines important conceptual frameworks and theory within social psychology and the social sciences generally. Māori perspectives and exemplars will be a significant emphasis within the course. 

This course examines the techniques and uses of epidemiology in preventing poor health, health planning and evaluation.

This course examines the nature, formation, and classification of soils, their physical, chemical, mineralogical, and biological properties, and issues of soil quality, land degradation and sustainable management. It also encompasses the properties, genesis, and distribution of the soils of New Zealand and their use.

This course examines critical social science research in Aotearoa New Zealand. It adopts an interdisciplinary approach spanning Indigenous and Feminist studies, political science and sociology, and is organized around the case study of climate change.

This course examines how Māori, Pacific and Indigenous communities respond, adapt and mitigate the challenges presented by climate change drawing on indigenous theoretical approaches and relationships with land, oceans, culture, resources, development and political frameworks within settler-colonial states and Pacific nations and others.

This course examines histories of sovereignty, land and water protection, decolonial activism, and artistic movements, focusing on connections between Indigenous peoples' in Aotearoa, the Pacific, Australia, and the Americas, as well as Asia, and Northern Europe.

This course examines the way that foods have been exchanged across the world, and the tensions between local and globalizing forces in shaping the way we eat over the last 500 years. Over the semester, we will move from the medieval spice trade to sugar and slavery in the Atlantic world, and from colonial New Zealand's role as Britain's farm to the global influence of McDonald's and fast food in the 20th century. Through the examination of important food staples, this course introduces students to food, commodities, and material culture as approaches to studying local, regional and global history from the early modern period until the twentieth century. During the course, we will reflect on why we each eat the way we do, and why food is such a powerful tool to understand and communicate cultural and economic change across time. 

This course examines genetics in the widest sense from the molecular and cellular to the applied and evolutionary. Both prokaryote and eukaryote genetics are discussed with respect to DNA replication, hereditary, gene expression and control, and the role of mutations at both the DNA and chromosomal levels. The course provides a pathway from basic research in molecular genetics to clinical applications in health and disease.