In the various courses we aim at:

• Teaching critical skills that will allow you to analyse and evaluate the social world in which you find yourself - at the local, regional and national levels, but also within a global context. We try to question common sense views of the world, admitting to the complexity of social interactions; developing an approach that will make for clearer understanding and more effective intervention in society. To enable such understanding and questioning we draw on classical and contemporary theory within the social sciences more broadly and within sociology specifically.
  
  
• We aim to develop practical skills: social research, information, technology, accessing information (in the libraries and archives, on the Internet, through mass media), reading and presentational skills. These are integral to every course, from first level to graduate studies, but specifically within dedicated research courses (Research Methods in the Social Sciences at first level, Research Design at third level, and two graduate research courses).
  
  
• Third, through the content that we draw on in the various courses we will convey information on the social world. Every lecturer also alerts students to a range of additional sources of information essential to studying and understanding the world we live in. For example, we draw on the multicultural texture that resulted from the historic migrations into the KwaZulu-Natal province, the serious contemporary social issues of the local, and the effects of global integration.