102083 Assignment 2A submission

Tutor:- Karin Mackay

Team:- Ahmed Chatila, Alex Gramatkovski , Fatemeh Tajkey, Gerald Grove-White
URL

Supporting Materials (Slides) in Word Format

Objective
To develop a resource that students in Years 12 Maths and Science can use to gain an
understanding of the impacts on health of various SES Levels. This will be further developed
into a broader discussion of Social Justice and equity in the final moderated session.
Student outcomes
It is intended that the students gain an in-depth understanding of the impact of SES on a
wide range of health matters. They will also develop research and deductive skills in
interpreting the information, and data that they obtain from the resource materials. By using
identified areas within Sydney as exemplars, students, will gain insights into the use of
statistics and also possible biases in the data. The students will be excepted to present their
findings and conclusion to their Teacher who will award a prize to the best Team ( perhaps a
day trip to each of the 3 areas!) The presentations and discussion will be moderated by their
Teacher and a visiting staff member of UWS Education Dept., with the aim to extending the
issue of SES into the more general areas of Social Justice and equity within Australian society
etc.
Description of the Resource
The resource consists of a variety of data sources and papers for the 3 selected areas High,
Medium, and Low, relating to the following:-
• An American Paper on the impact of SES on Health
• A paper by the ABS on their methodologies for reporting SES
• SES data on advantage and disadvantage and SES Rank for the 3 selected areas High,
Medium, and Low
• Obesity data by SES and selected areas
• Smoking by SES and selected areas
• Access to services shops, health care, transport for the 3 selected areas
• Mortality by SES
• Alcohol and substance abuse
• Paper on “parks and Green Spaces”
• Stress, poor housing, street violence and crime

Using the resource:-

 • Students will be asked to prepare a presentation, comparing the 3 selected areas of
Sydney using not only the resource provided, but also any others they can find. eg
media, other reports etc.
• Their primary focus will be on health, and how SES impacts on that.
• Students should explore the explanatory ABS materials.
• They will be encouraged to look at not only the raw data on say obesity, but also are
there sufficient shops nearby. They might consider using Google maps to identify how
many fast food outlets there are within a 5km radius. ie they should seek to develop
an understanding of the subsets of issues that drive health outcomes
• Are there adequate parks and open spaces in each of the selected areas for exercise?
• In the final presentation the 3 Teams will each present their finding and identify any
issues that they consider may be relevant, but were not included in the resource.
• It is intended that there be a moderated discussion about the whole subject of SES as a
predictor of outcomes for groups of people.
• It is expected that this project will take a number of hours to complete.

Other Resources

o Computer with Google maps

o Access to the Aurin web site https://aurin.org.au/workbench/
o Map of Sydney with the selected areas identified

Theory
• SES is one of the most reliable indicators of success in many dimensions of human
activity, including advantage, and disadvantage in education and health.
• Students should be introduced to Bourdieu’s types of capital (economic, cultural and
social), field, and habitus at a very simplistic level.
• The concepts of the dominant discourses in society, and how they disempower
particular groups in Society can also be introduced ie:-
“Fat Cats” and “Dole Bludgers”, “Eastern Suburbs” v “Western Sydney”, “High
SES”and ”Low SES”
• Based on the nature of the presentations, the opportunity may present itself to
introduce the theory of social reproduction. “The future of the next generation is
strongly influenced by the past.