Understanding social problems is not just about listing issues such as poverty, unemployment, crime, or gender-based violence. In WSU SOC121, the emphasis is on how social problems develop, how they are experienced by people in specific communities, and how systems (institutions, policy, and unequal power relations) shape those problems—particularly within the Eastern Cape. This study …
Kinship and family are central organising principles in many African societies: they shape rights and duties, define belonging, regulate marriage, and structure everyday social life. In WSU’s ANT212 (Sociology & Anthropology Stream), exam questions commonly test your ability to explain key concepts—such as descent, residence, lineage, marriage systems, and household composition—and to connect these to …
WSU ANT212: Exam Notes on Kinship, Family, and Social Structure in African Societies Read More »
SOC111, Introduction to Sociology and Social Institutions, is the foundational gateway course for students in the Sociology & Anthropology stream at Walter Sisulu University (WSU). It equips you with key sociological concepts, teaches you how sociologists study society, and explains how social institutions shape everyday life, social order, and social change. This study guide is …
WSU SOC111: Complete Study Guide for Introduction to Sociology and Social Institutions Read More »
ANT121 (Introduction to Cultural Anthropology and Ethnography) introduces you to the foundational ideas, methods, and ethical responsibilities of cultural anthropology. The course trains you to think comparatively about cultures, to understand how ethnography is produced, and to recognize how power, history, and identity shape everyday life. This study guide is designed for success in WSU …
Advanced Sociological Theory connects foundational classics of sociology to contemporary debates about modernity, law, culture, globalization, and social change. This study guide traces a coherent intellectual arc from Émile Durkheim’s concern with social facts and collective life, through Max Weber’s interpretive sociology and rationalization, to Karl Marx’s conflict-centered analysis, and then into later transformations highlighted …
WSU SOC311: Advanced Sociological Theory – From Durkheim to Bauman Read More »
WSU SOC221: Research Methodology in the Social Sciences equips you with the practical skills to plan, conduct, and evaluate social science research. This exam notes and study guide translates methodology concepts into a structured workflow you can apply to assignments, mini-dissertations, and full research projects. Because research in sociology and anthropology depends on careful reasoning …
WSU SOC221: Research Methodology in the Social Sciences — A Step-by-Step Guide Read More »
Political Anthropology (ANT311) explores how power is produced, contested, and stabilized through everyday practices, institutions, rituals, and violence. It bridges classic anthropological insights—such as legitimacy, kinship, symbolism, and authority—with political science concerns about the state, governance, and conflict. This study guide is designed for students at Walter Sisulu University (WSU) within the Sociology & Anthropology …
WSU ANT311: Political Anthropology — Power, Conflict and the State Read More »
CPUT SOC320S is a sociology-of-work and organisational-behaviour module that helps technologists understand how workplaces function as social systems—not just technical systems. It connects classic sociological concepts (power, culture, labour markets, organisational change) to day-to-day organisational realities such as teamwork, supervision, workplace conflict, motivation, and the ethics of technology at work. For technologists, the module is …
CPUT SOC320S: Sociology of Work and Organisational Behaviour for Technologists Read More »
Urban development in South Africa cannot be fully understood without confronting the dynamics of housing provision, informal settlement growth, and the policy mechanisms that attempt to transform uneven spatial development. UDS220S: Urban Development Studies – Housing and Informal Settlements equips students to read cities as systems where land, livelihoods, governance, and inequality interact. These notes …
CPUT’s RMD210S: Research Methods for Development Practitioners equips future development practitioners with the logic, tools, and ethics of applied research in real-world settings. The course emphasises how to move from a practical development problem to a researchable question, how to design credible methodologies, and how to collect and analyse data responsibly—often in complex South African …
CPUT RMD210S: Research Methods for Development Practitioners — Complete Notes Read More »
Gender and Development (GAD) studies how gender relations shape opportunities, power, safety, health, education, and livelihoods—and how development interventions can either reduce or reproduce inequality. In a South African university context, GAD110S invites students to connect theory with real social realities: from workplace discrimination and gender-based violence to service delivery, policy implementation, and community-based practice. …
CPUT GAD110S: Gender and Development – Theories and Practical Applications Read More »
Project Management for Non-Profit Organisations (often coded PMD310S at the Cape Peninsula University of Technology (CPUT)) demands both conceptual mastery and practical application. Non-profit projects differ from commercial work: they are mission-driven, stakeholder-rich, impact-focused, and often constrained by restricted funding and heightened accountability. This exam guide synthesizes the typical learning outcomes and assessment emphases for …
CPUT PMD310S: Project Management for Non-Profit Organisations Exam Guide Read More »
UNISA’s DVA2601 is a foundational module for understanding how development happens at community level and how local governance shapes (and is shaped by) that process. This study guide consolidates the key concepts, policy frameworks, institutional roles, and practical tools you need to answer exam questions confidently and apply theory to real community scenarios in South …
UNISA DVA2601: Complete Study Pack for Community Development and Local Governance Read More »
UNISA’s SOC1501: Community, Society and Inequality is a foundational module for understanding how social life is organised, experienced, and stratified. The course equips students to analyse communities not only as “places,” but as systems shaped by power, resources, institutions, culture, and inequality. These exam notes consolidate key concepts, theories, typical arguments, and applied examples commonly …
UNISA SOC1501: Community, Society and Inequality — Foundational Exam Notes Read More »
Collective behaviour and social movements help explain how ordinary people—and sometimes whole communities—organise, protest, negotiate, and sometimes escalate conflict in response to social change. In the South African context, these processes are tightly linked to inequality, service delivery, political party dynamics, race and class relations, labour organisation, community struggles, and contestations over land, housing, and …
UNISA SOC3701: A Guide to Collective Behaviour and Social Movements in South Africa Read More »
Industrial sociology examines how work is organised, how power and authority operate in workplaces, and how labour relations shape both economic outcomes and social life. UNISA SOC3706 focuses on labour relations as a dynamic system—negotiation, regulation, dispute resolution, collective bargaining, and conflict—while also asking how these systems are being reshaped by transformations in production, technology, …
UNISA SOC3706: Industrial Sociology – Labour Relations and the Future of Work Read More »
SDC110S—Social Dynamics and Communication in Communities—is a foundational module that explores how people, groups, and communities interact, how social structures shape communication, and how communication in turn shapes social outcomes. At Cape Peninsula University of Technology (CPUT), this module is typically assessed through a mix of concept-based questions, scenario-based prompts, short essays, and reflective or …
CPUT SDC110S: Exam Notes for Social Dynamics and Communication in Communities Read More »
CDV220S (Community Development and Volunteerism) is one of the most practice-oriented courses within the Cape Peninsula University of Technology (CPUT) “Social Contexts” learning pathway. The module typically examines how community development principles translate into real-world volunteer action—linking policy, participation, needs assessment, project design, implementation, and monitoring. This study guide provides a practical, exam-ready framework using …
CPUT CDV220S: A Practical Study Guide on Community Development and Volunteerism Read More »
CPUT’s SSP310S (“Analysing Social Problems in the Western Cape – A Case Study Approach”) develops students’ ability to understand social problems as complex, historically rooted, and institutionally mediated processes. Rather than treating “poverty”, “crime”, or “youth unemployment” as isolated issues, the module trains learners to analyse how these problems interact across households, communities, labour markets, …
CPUT SSP310S: Analysing Social Problems in the Western Cape – A Case Study Approach Read More »
This exam notes and study guide is designed for CPUT SJI120S (Introduction to Social Justice and Human Rights in SA), a course that explores how social justice and human rights are understood, protected, and contested in South Africa. It links foundational theory to the lived realities of inequality, discrimination, and constitutional democracy. The guide also …
CPUT SJI120S: Introduction to Social Justice and Human Rights in SA Read More »
UFS SOCL1514, Analysing South African Social Problems, is a sociology-focused course designed to help you interpret real-life social issues in South Africa using sociological theories, research logic, and ethically grounded analysis. The exam typically rewards students who can: (1) clearly define and contextualise social problems, (2) apply theory to evidence, and (3) evaluate interventions and …
UFS SOCL1514: Analysing South African Social Problems – Exam Preparation Guide Read More »
Race, class, and gender are not separate “social problems” in South Africa; they are deeply interwoven systems that shape education, work, housing, health, belonging, and political power. In SOCL2634, the focus is on using sociological concepts—often grounded in South African history—to understand how inequality is produced, reproduced, and contested in everyday life and in major …
UFS SOCL2634: Detailed Notes on Race, Class, and Gender in South African Society Read More »
Anthropology does not treat “power,” “politics,” and “violence” as separate topics. In ANTH2644, these themes are understood as entangled—produced through everyday practices, institutions, symbols, economies, and state-citizen relations. Across the semester, you will be expected to read ethnographic case studies critically, connect theory to evidence, and explain how different forms of domination and resistance operate …
UFS ANTH2644: Study Guide on the Anthropology of Power, Politics, and Violence Read More »
SOCL3714 (Urban and Rural Sociology: Communities in Transition) examines how social life is shaped by changing spatial contexts—cities, towns, rural areas, and the shifting boundaries between them. The course is fundamentally about social change: migration, informal economies, service delivery, housing, governance, inequality, and culture as communities transform. In the South African context, “transition” often refers …
Urbanisation reshapes everyday life: it changes how people move, where they live, how services are delivered, and how inequality is reproduced or reduced. UNISA SOC3703 (Urban Sociology and Spatial Planning) sits at the intersection of sociological theory and practical planning questions—how cities function as social systems and how spatial decisions affect social outcomes. These exam …
UNISA SOC3703: Comprehensive Exam Notes on Urban Sociology and Spatial Planning Read More »
UNISA’s SOC3704 (Rural Sociology and Agrarian Transformation) examines how rural societies change under pressure from markets, the state, labour migration, land reform, technology, and environmental stress. It also trains you to interpret rural transformation through sociological theories and to connect academic concepts to South African policy debates and lived realities. This study guide is designed …
UNISA SOC3704: A Complete Study Guide for Rural Sociology and Agrarian Transformation Read More »
Globalisation, environmental transformation, and social change are tightly interwoven forces shaping everyday life, social inequality, migration, and local governance. For students in South African rural and urban sociology, these processes are not abstract: they affect housing, labour markets, service delivery, land use, health outcomes, and community cohesion. UNISA SOC2602 builds your ability to analyse these …
Development Policy and Strategies in the Global South (UNISA DVA3703) examines how development is planned, financed, implemented, contested, and evaluated—particularly where inequality, informality, climate risk, and uneven power relations shape policy outcomes. The module is also strongly about policy thinking: not only knowing the major theories (e.g., modernization, dependency, structuralism, post-development) but being able to …
UNISA DVA3703: Study Notes on Development Policy and Strategies in the Global South Read More »
UNISA’s SOC3705 (Social Theory) builds a rigorous foundation for understanding how sociologists explain society—through classic theories, debates, and contemporary applications. This guide is written for South African undergraduates and focuses on how to learn, revise, and apply social theory in ways that work for UNISA’s assessment style: essays, short answers, and application-based exam questions. You’ll …
UNISA SOC3705: Social Theory – A Detailed Guide for Undergraduates Read More »
Sociology of Health and Illness (SOC2604) at UNISA examines how health, disease, disability, and healthcare experiences are socially produced—not only biologically determined. In South Africa, where disparities in access, quality of care, and health outcomes intersect with race, class, gender, migration, and geography, health becomes a powerful lens for understanding broader inequalities. This study guide …
UNISA SOC2604: Sociology of Health and Illness — Key Concepts and Case Studies Read More »
SOCL1005A, Foundational Concepts in Sociology, introduces the core lenses students use to understand how societies work—how social life is organised, how power and inequality operate, and how “common sense” is shaped by institutions and culture. For a first-year module, it acts like a toolkit: concepts (like culture, structure, agency), key theorists and debates (like functionalism …
Wits SOCL1005A: Foundational Concepts in Sociology – A Complete First Year Guide Read More »
Contemporary South African political economy examines how institutions, power relations, and economic structures interact—shaping growth, inequality, employment, and the distribution of risks and opportunities. In a course like POLS3007A, the emphasis typically falls on moving beyond “economic facts” to analyze political drivers—state capacity, labour contestation, party competition, and policy choices—and global constraints such as commodity …
Wits POLS3007A: Study Notes on Contemporary South African Political Economy Read More »
Social theory helps us explain how societies work, why power is organised the way it is, and how social order is produced and reproduced over time. In SOCL3017A, you typically move through a “genealogy” of ideas—from Karl Marx and the political economy of capitalism, through later theorists who refine or challenge Marxism, to Michel Foucault …
Wits SOCL3017A: Detailed Guide to Social Theory from Marx to Foucault Read More »
ANTH1624 (Introduction to Social Anthropology) is a foundation course designed to train you to think anthropologically—to understand human life in social and cultural contexts, to interpret difference without reducing it to “otherness,” and to apply key concepts (culture, society, meaning, power, kinship, economy, religion, language, and colonial legacies) to real ethnographic cases. The course also …
UFS ANTH1624: Complete Study Guide for Introduction to Social Anthropology Read More »
The sociology of culture, media, and identity examines how everyday meanings—like music, news, fashion, language, and “common sense”—are socially produced, contested, and reproduced. It also explores how media institutions and platforms shape identity categories (such as gender, race, class, nationality, and generation), and how audiences actively interpret those messages. In the South African context, these …
UFS SOCL2614: Exam Notes on the Sociology of Culture, Media, and Identity Read More »
Ethnographic research methods are at the heart of social and cultural anthropology, enabling researchers to understand lived experience from the standpoint of participants and communities. In UFS ANTH3724, students strengthen their ability to design ethical fieldwork, conduct systematic observation and interviewing, and produce credible, reflexive ethnographic accounts. This comprehensive guide focuses on what you need …
UFS ANTH3724: A Comprehensive Guide to Ethnographic Research Methods Read More »
Advanced Sociological Theory at UFS (SOCL3744) focuses on how contemporary theorists rework foundational debates about power, meaning, inequality, institutions, and social change. The course is especially relevant for students of anthropology and cultural sociology because many “big theory” controversies—structure vs agency, modernity vs postmodernity, coloniality and decolonial knowledge—are also controversies about culture, interpretation, and everyday …
UFS ANTH2624 offers a deep, comparative exploration of how kinship systems, religious ideas, and ritual practices work together to produce social meaning in Southern Africa. The module emphasises ethnographic reasoning: you learn to interpret what people do—marry, bury, pray, initiate, heal, offer ancestors, negotiate authority—by linking those actions to structures of relatedness and to the …
UFS ANTH2624: In-Depth Study of Kinship, Religion, and Ritual in Southern Africa Read More »
UFS ANTH3734: Medical Anthropology — Culture, Health, and Illness in Practice explores how people’s beliefs, social worlds, histories, and political-economic conditions shape what counts as “health,” how illness is experienced, and why particular treatments are sought or avoided. Rather than treating medicine as purely biological, medical anthropology examines the cultural meanings of symptoms, the lived …
This exam notes study guide synthesises major theories used to analyse globalisation from the Global South perspective—especially how power, labour, policy, and uneven development shape social outcomes. The guide is anchored in globalisation debates (postcolonialism, dependency, world-systems, decolonial thinking) and links them to empirical realities familiar in South African scholarship and training contexts, including universities, …
South Africa’s transition from apartheid to democracy is not a single event; it is an extended, contested social transformation that continues to shape inequalities, institutions, identities, and policy outcomes. SOCL4022A in the Wits Focus: Labour, Policy & Globalisation Studies cluster is designed to help students analyse how social transitions are governed—through legislation, welfare systems, labour …
Wits SOCL4022A: In-Depth Analysis of Social Transitions and Policy in Post-Apartheid SA Read More »
SOCL3015A (Wits) focuses on how power, rule, legitimacy, and social conflict are produced through institutions and everyday practices. The module is typically approached through core theories in political sociology—especially the relationships between the state and society, class and domination, citizenship and inequality, and governance and coercion. This study guide offers a course-aligned, assessment-oriented set of …
Wits SOCL3015A: Comprehensive Study Guide for Political Sociology and the State Read More »
Political Sociology (PSC110) at Vaal University of Technology (VUT) explores how power is organised and contested across social life—particularly through the state, civil society, and everyday institutions. This exam notes guide explains key theories (classical to contemporary), maps them onto South African political realities, and provides exam-ready frameworks for interpreting arguments, applying concepts, and answering …
VUT PSC110: Political Sociology – Power, State, and Civil Society Exam Notes Read More »
CRI221 (Criminology and Social Deviance) at Vaal University of Technology (VUT) sits at the intersection of explaining why people and groups engage in behaviour that violates social norms and how societies respond through law, policing, justice systems, welfare mechanisms, and media narratives. A strong exam performance requires more than memorising definitions: you need to apply …
VUT CRI221: Exam Preparation Guide for Criminology and Social Deviance Read More »
Social research thrives on design choices that make evidence credible, arguments traceable, and ethics non-negotiable. SOCL7045A develops advanced capability to plan, justify, and execute research using rigorous methodological reasoning—spanning epistemology, sampling, measurement, fieldwork, analysis, and research ethics. These notes are framed for Wits Focus: Labour, Policy & Globalisation Studies, with a strong emphasis on research …
Wits SOCL7045A: Masterclass Notes on Social Research Design and Methodology Read More »
SOCL3009A (Wits) “Industrial Sociology and the Changing World of Work” invites you to connect classic sociological theories of work and industry with the contemporary transformation of labour markets. The course is usually assessed through a mix of theoretical argument, application to labour institutions, and analysis of global-to-local changes such as automation, platform work, restructuring, and …
Wits SOCL3009A: Study Guide for Industrial Sociology and the Changing World of Work Read More »
The anthropology of development examines how “development” is defined, implemented, and experienced through institutions, knowledge systems, labour relations, and everyday practices. In ANTH2007A, the focus typically moves beyond evaluating whether development “works” toward asking how development becomes real—through policies, projects, funding regimes, experts, categories, and moral narratives. This study guide is designed to help you …
Wits ANTH2007A: Exam Preparation for *The Anthropology of Development* Read More »
Gender and society in South Africa cannot be understood through theory alone; it is lived through institutions, workplaces, families, media, and everyday interactions. VUT GDS120 (Gender and Society in a South African Context) examines how gender identities and relations are shaped by power—especially where race, class, culture, sexuality, disability, and geography intersect with law and …
VUT GDS120: Study Guide for Gender and Society in a South African Context Read More »
Urban sociology examines how cities are shaped by power, inequality, mobility, culture, and the everyday struggles of residents. URB310, “Challenges and Dynamics of South African Cities,” foregrounds the distinctive historical and structural conditions of urban life in South Africa—especially apartheid spatial planning, post-apartheid policy trade-offs, economic restructuring, and ongoing governance challenges. This study guide equips …
VUT URB310: Urban Sociology — Challenges and Dynamics of South African Cities Read More »
Law and labour sit at the intersection of social power, economic organisation, and political struggle. In SOCL2005A (Law, Labour and Society), you are expected to analyse how legal institutions shape work and how labour movements and workplace actors, in turn, challenge legal frameworks. This means you must be able to move between theory (e.g., power, …
Wits SOCL2005A: Exam Notes on Law, Labour and Society Read More »
