Grade levels: Adult

  • Crime and Deviance

    n this program we take a journey through time to show how ideas about crime have moved in and out of fashion, how some of the latest strategies of crime prevention go back to the 19th Century and how thinking about crime and deviance is influenced by wider social changes.

  • Day Care

    There has been an explosion of day care in the last three decades. But what are the effects on children’s long term development? Starting from a nursery, this program explores these questions with case studies, documentary sources and expert analysis from Jay Belsky and Julia Berryman.

  • Families and Households

    Although sociology is full of long and complicated words, it’s important to remember it’s about the lives of real people. These are the first lines of this program and they set the tone. Filmed on location, it makes the topic of families more accessible by interweaving key sociological ideas with real people’s experiences of family life.

  • Eating Disorders

    Although food has never been more plentiful in developed countries, an apparently increasing number of young people don’t want to eat, or want to get rid of what they’ve eaten as quickly as possible. Eating disorders now have one of the highest mortality rates of all psychiatric conditions. We begin with some brief case studies of anorectics and establish what psychologists mean by an eating disorder. This leads into exploring the main causes of eating disorders.

  • Student-Centered Learning

    Responsibility for learning now lies with students – who are central to their own learning process, not teachers as in the past. Student-centered learning focuses on how students learn, what they experience, what they bring to the classroom and how they engage. This program addresses what Student-Centered Learning is, how it works and why schools are incorporating it. With comments from educational experts, teachers and students, we also explore the whole school approach to student-centered learning, various strategies to facilitate it and typical scenarios in a student-centered learning classroom.

  • Eyewitness Testimony

    We begin with a brief case study of a prisoner convicted on eyewitness testimony alone. This leads in to an exploration of the reliability of eyewitness testimony and what this can tell us about the nature of memory itself. Police and lay accounts are supplemented by expert analysis from Michael Eysenck, Phil Banyard and crime expert, Julie Harrower.

  • System Development Lifecycle: A Case Study of Group Wisdom

    At the beginning of 2002, Glen Waverley High School launched its new virtual classroom system called “Group Wisdom”. The system was designed to help teachers better organize their class work and communicate with their students. Through the eyes of Ylana, a student at the school, this program explores what the system does and how it was developed. The five stages of the system development lifecycle are clearly explained with the aid of diagrams and metaphors.

  • Obedience and Ethics

    Conformity is essential to social life. But behind the familiar order of everyday life lurk some uncomfortable truths. Psychological experiments have shown that our desire to conform can lead us into mistrusting our own experiences, turning a blind eye to the suffering of others, and even inflicting harm on others. But these findings come at a price – the possible harm to those being studied. Should psychologists be doing this type of research? This program explores some of the key ethical issues arising from psychological research into obedience and conformity.

  • Tackling Bullying Behaviors: Non-Punitive Approaches

    Bullying is an age-old problem that has been addressed in various ways over the years. This program considers non-punitive approaches. It is divided into four main sections: No Blame Approach; Shared Concern Method; Restorative Justice; Parents;Tackling Bullying Behaviors will stimulate discussion as to how your school is currently addressing bullying issues.

  • Stress Management

    Stress has been called the most prevalent disease of modern society: a new epidemic brought about by the pace of modern life and the pressure to succeed in a climate of increasing job insecurity. Stress management is big business. But what do stress counselors do? How effective are their remedies? And are we becoming a nation of stress addicts?