Australia Society (History)
This Assessment Task relates to the following Learning Outcomes:
� Be familiar with key sociological concepts as they are applied to the study of Australian society.
� Have developed an understanding of a range of theoretical perspectives on social life from the
19th century to the present.
� Have developed a broad understanding of how the �sociological imagination� can be used in
thinking about social issues and trends.
� Have developed a broad understanding of research techniques, materials social science
epistemology.
� Be able to read, summarise and apply essential sociological ideas to the study of contemporary
life.
� Have developed a rich understanding of contemporary Australian life.
� Written and verbal expression allowing the synthesis and clear explanation of complex ideas.
AUSTRALIA SOCIETY 2
Inequalities can either be visible or invisible, individualistic or structural. Given its
ambivalence, inequality will depend on how one can see it. In real life, inequalities persist
because of Structural problems, Public constraints and Political-institutional constraints. Given
inequality permeates all aspects of society it is important to understand it.
Categorical inequality is a by-product of interpersonal interactions composed of
negotiated collective boundaries. Care should be taken not to assume that categories will always
produce inequalities – differences are guaranteed. Inequality is mostly a consequence of
distributive effect of scarce resources. When one or more value producing resource is controlled,
inequality emerges as decision on its supply and ability to produce more value with it has to be
considered.
Recent studies suggest that financial capital, information, science and type of value-
producing resource are the main factors that contribute the most to inequality. All this factors
are currently controlled by small networks of persons compared to the world’s population as a
whole. These identified factors will still have an effect of future inequality. Their impact will
depend on their integration with categorical differences and their relation to concentrated means
of coercion.
AUSTRALIA SOCIETY 3
References
Romero, M & Margolis, E (2005) The Blackwell Companion to Social Inequalities, Blackwell
Publishing Ltd, Malden, MA.
