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Indigenous Children and the Law - LAWS8123

Faculty: Faculty of Law

School: Faculty of Law

Course Outline: See below

Campus: Sydney

Career: Postgraduate

Units of Credit: 6

EFTSL: 0.12500 (more info)

Indicative Contact Hours per Week: 2

Enrolment Requirements:

Pre-requisite: Academic Program must be 9200 or 9210 or 9230 or 5740 or 9211 or 5211 or 9220 or 5750 or 9285 or 5285.

Excluded: JURD7813

CSS Contribution Charge: (more info)

Tuition Fee: See Tuition Fee Schedule

Further Information: See Class Timetable

View course information for previous years.

Description

This course, taught by two Indigenous academics, will be concerned with the historical and contemporary experience of Indigenous children within and beyond the constructs of law and society. Using United Nations human rights frameworks, the course will take an interdisciplinary approach to selected legal issues impacting upon Indigenous children within Australia and internationally. Topics to be covered include: theory of children’s rights; Indigenous children; the Aboriginal Child Placement Principle, Indigenous children’s engagement with the criminal justice system, family law, child protection and Indigenous children’s access, representation, and participation within the legal system

LLM Specialisations

Criminal Justice and Criminology
Human Rights and Social Justice

Recommended Prior Knowledge

None

Course Aims

Develop an understanding of the theoretical underpinnings of the rights of the child;
Develop an ability to critically analyse the legal arguments around child rights;
Develop the ability to evaluate the opportunities and challenges in using the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child and the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples as effective ways of promoting and protecting Indigenous children’s rights;
Demonstrate an ability to identify the ways in which the law becomes a part of Indigenous children’s lives;
Develop an understanding of the major issues in Indigenous juvenile justice and the limitations of approaches to combating the problem;
Develop an understanding of the major issues relating to Indigenous child protection and be able to discuss ‘best interest’ options for intervention in specific contexts;
Develop a professional awareness of the type of work involved when working with Indigenous families including children;
Develop an awareness of and ability to apply interdisciplinary perspectives to their studies;
Demonstrate an ability to think critically and to justify ideas in a reasoned manner;
Identify and conduct appropriate legal research and writing.

Learning Outcomes

A student who has successfully completed this course should be able to:

demonstrate knowledge of the range of issues impacting on Indigenous Children's legal and political participation, including a critical understanding of the policy considerations informing the law in this area;
demonstrate the skills of analysis and evaluation which are required to engage in practical and scholarly legal research. This will include skills necessary to plan effective research strategies; collect, retrieve and collate relevant information; analyse, evaluate and interpret information apply and report on empirical research;
recognise and reflect on ethical and justice issues that are likely to arise in professional practice in this area;
identify and formulate legal issues in this area and engage in critical analysis of those issues;
be able to communicate their understanding and analysis of legal and policy issues in this area to others in both legal and non-legal formats.

Assessment

Class participation 20%
Research essay 80%

Course Texts

To be advised

Resources

A full up-to date reading list will be provided in the course outline.