Unit 3: Culture, Power and Social Change
Core concepts
Unit 3 examines Australian culture and the relationship between culture, power and change. You must understand culture (material and non-material), ethnocentrism and cultural relativism, multiculturalism, power (as the capacity to influence), authority, inequality, social stratification, and social change (gradual or rapid, evolutionary or transformative). Understand how institutions exercise power and how groups resist. Know the distinction between prejudice and discrimination, and between equality and equity. Concepts of globalisation and its effect on Australian culture are also relevant, as is the role of social movements in driving change.
Common traps
Students often describe cultural practices without analysing power relations. Avoid equating multiculturalism with mere 'food and festivals'; questions reward analysis of policy, identity and inclusion. Another trap is treating social change as inevitable progress rather than examining winners and losers. Be precise: prejudice is an attitude, discrimination is behaviour; equality means sameness of treatment, equity means fairness accounting for disadvantage. When asked to analyse, identify who holds power, how it is exercised, and with what consequences.
Rule of thumb
Use a power lens: ask who benefits, who is excluded, and how institutions legitimise or challenge existing arrangements.
Worked example
Question: 'Analyse how a social movement can produce cultural change.' Strong answer: identify the movement, explain its challenge to dominant norms, describe how it uses institutions and media to shift public values, note resistance from those holding power, and assess the extent of change - demonstrating the link between power, culture and change.