Bachelor of Social Work

at York University - School of Continuing Studies Canada

Urban Studies at York stresses the importance of fieldwork when studying the social and spatial fabric of cities.

The city is among the most fundamental human institutions. Across history, cities have been sites of basic innovation in economic, political and cultural life — centres of trade, seats of empire and the locale of scientific, social and artistic creativity. Cities retain these roles today and are the home of a growing majority of the world’s population who increasingly live in large metropolitan regions of several million people. Often, as in many Canadian cities, these urban regions are marked by complex social diversity, striking contrasts of wealth and poverty and a challenging array of planning and environmental dilemmas.

Urban Studies is the attempt to understand cities and city life — how they function, the current and future concerns of their residents. This encompasses the political institutions, economic and social relations, physical landscapes and cultural frameworks that constitute the city.

As a student in Urban Studies, you will focus on cities as distinctive entities and explore the meaning and function of cities in the larger society. You'll be taking courses from a broad range of fields including:

• History
• Environmental studies
• Geography
• Anthropology
• Political science
• Sociology
• Psychology.

You will also examine the processes that produce certain patterns of human settlement and chart the changing relationships among areas shaped by urbanization, such as metropolis and countryside, city and suburb, municipality and region.

There are three streams within the Physics and Astronomy program:

• Physics
• Applied Physics
• Astronomy and Astrophysics

Physics is the most fundamental science discipline. It attempts to understand nature at its deepest level. It develops an understanding and description of all forms of energy and matter and can be said to occupy the middle ground between mathematics and engineering.

Astronomy is the science that deals with the origin, evolution, composition, distance and motion of all bodies and scattered matter in the universe. It includes astrophysics, which discusses the physical properties and structure of all cosmic matter. Participate in world-class research projects led by our professors in fields as diverse as atomic and molecular physics, laser physics, elementary particle and subatomic physics and engineering physics. Students from this program routinely win prestigious grants to support them in all areas of graduate research.

You will gain a strong grounding in physics, astronomy and computer-based physics with a strong experimental physics component. You will not only learn the subject matter, but also learn how to write scientific reports, and deliver oral presentations on a topic of your choice. The physical world is open to you!

• Work with professors in our research groups like those in experimental high-energy (particle) physics and astronomy and the Centre for Research in Earth & Space Science.
• It's natural to combine Physics with other disciplines, such as Earth and Atmospheric Science, Chemistry, Computer Science or Biology. Given that physics teachers for high schools are difficult to find, why not combine Physics & Astronomy studies with a teaching degree?
• York's Astronomical Observatory is actively engaged in a long-term variable star monitoring program. Although clear and dark skies are not as frequent as one would like in Toronto, the results from this on going research have yielded relatively "clean" and valid scientific results. Results are presented at the annual Canadian Astronomical Society meetings each year. Come to a public viewing on Wednesday night or take a virtual tour.
• The Astronomy Club brings together all those who look to beauty, those who seek knowledge and those who are simply curious to meet, discuss and learn about the cosmos in which we live.

Crime, criminality, and criminal justice are central concerns in contemporary Canadian society. In politics, law, policy and popular culture, the problem of crime and what to do about it command increasing attention and interest. The Criminology program will provide you with an exceptional opportunity to pursue study in this evolving and expanding field. You will explore the ways in which concepts of crime, criminality and criminal justice have developed over time. You will also investigate how crime is understood legally, politically, economically and culturally.

The program’s interdisciplinary approach is reflected in complementary relationships with a number of other academic disciplines including anthropology, history, philosophy, political science, psychology, socio-legal studies, and sociology. Students are able to choose courses from these disciplines as well as from the core program courses, each of which draws from a range of disciplines and is devoted to making connections between different areas of study.

Note: Criminology is not a pre-law preparatory program.

The Criminology program will focus on the analysis of:

• Crime
• Criminality
• Processes of criminalization and social control
• Organized crime
• Systems of justice
• Criminal justice systems

Culture & Expression explores the catalytic relationship between the creative human imagination and the cultural settings that ignite it.
Literature, architecture, popular culture, the arts, media and technology provide areas of study for Culture & Expression courses. This program investigates how meaning, embedded in form, offers ways of understanding culture as a complex expression that animates human imagination and life. It encourages speculation on how this expression operates in social, political and cultural settings.

Through the lens of humanities studies, you examine historical and contemporary themes. Explore how themes are expressed, refracted, and reflected through a range of cultural forms such as cinema, music, literature and various forms of popular and material culture. Theoretical courses delve into the core of ideological "meaning" in culture, analyzing the social, economic and political contexts in which culture manifests itself.

Highlights of studying Culture & Expression at York:

• Explore exciting expressions of human creativity in popular culture, architecture, media and technology.
• Learn how a broad range of cultural and artistic forms convey social, political and philosophical concerns.
• Courses are drawn from areas including the humanities, communication studies, sociology, gender and women's studies, popular and material culture studies - providing you with personal choice and flexibility.
• Our professors are leading researchers in their fields: modernism, material culture, digital humanities, documentary film and critical studies in Black Canadian Culture.
• Courses are drawn from areas including the humanities, communication studies, sociology and women's studies - providing you with personal choice and flexibility.

Our professors are leading researchers in their fields. They include:

• Elicia Clements, author, Virginia Woolf: Music, Sound, Language
• Leslie Sanders, author, Black Canadian Studies Certificate
• David Cecchetto, author, Ludic Dreaming: How to Listen Away from Contemporary Technoculture
• Gail Vanstone, recipient of the 2010 Dean’s Award in Teaching Excellence.

The School of Gender, Sexuality and Women's Studies offers a consolidated undergraduate program which brings together the Women's Studies programs from the Faculty Liberal Arts & Professional Studies and Glendon Campus. This merged undergraduate program provides students with increased flexibility and access to a wide variety of Gender & Women's Studies courses.

Explore the diversity of women's experience in the present and past through courses that examine how race, ethnicity, disability, class and sexual orientation have shaped women’s lives. Through cross-cultural and disciplinary assessment, you’ll expose misconceptions about women expressed through myth, ideologies, teaching and writings. Our impressive community of professors conducts research that spans many fields including the humanities and social sciences, law, business, fine arts and environmental studies.

Gender & Women's Studies examines issues pertinent to women’s lives in the present and the past from an economic, political, social, and cultural perspective, with particular attention to how race, ethnicity, class, and sexual orientation have defined their experiences. In fact, every experience can be examined from these angles, and our interdisciplinary approach will allow you to do just that as you complete your degree.

• We offer academic Bridging Courses for women who want to upgrade their writing and speaking skills and explore the possibility of university study.
• Our program places a particular emphasis on international issues. Study with top-notch professors like Gertrude Mianda, a specialist in women and development, globalization, and African immigrant women in Canada. Bettina Bradbury is renowned for her work in the history of women in Quebec and recipient of the John A. Macdonald Prize for her book on Canadian history. Jacinthe Michaud is a specialist in social movements and the feminist movement. Any François is currently working on the promotion of equality and social justice in contemporary societies through the development of global antidiscriminatory strategies.
• Take classes at either one of our campuses – Glendon or Keele.
• Outside the classroom, you can participate in the activities of our on-campus Women’s Centre.

Gender & Women's Studies undertakes a critical evaluation of gender, and challenges many traditional assumptions and theories that previously excluded women. To do so, this program:

• Examines how gender is expressed in the attitudes and institutions of various societies in different historical periods;
• Explores the possible origins of gender differentiation;
• Questions how gender expectations mould the development of women and men;
• Studies the ways in which gender interacts with other social institutions and practices.

Our extensive facilities and our Biochemistry Lab – outfitted with state-of-the-art equipment – provides  you with hands-on training in the laboratory right from the very first year.

The Biochemistry program at York is your gateway to an exciting and rapidly evolving field. Biochemistry is the study of the chemistry of life, and as all fields of biology are increasingly seeking understanding at the molecular and submolecular levels, Biochemistry continues to be vitally important to advancing many areas of biology and biomedical science.

Biochemistry looks at topics such as molecular genetics, physiology and the treatment of disease. As a Biochemistry student you will explore the structure and properties of biological molecules and the relationship between their chemical structure and their function in living systems.

Many areas of everyday life owe their development or even existence to biochemists: medical products and diagnostics, new food and its safety, crop improvement, cosmetics and forensic science.

• York's Biochemistry professors include Sergey Krylov, Canada Research Chair in Bioanalytical Chemistry and David Hood, Canada Research Chair in Cell Physiology.
• York houses the Centre for Research on Biomolecular Interactions which houses more than 70 professors, researchers, graduate and undergraduate students. The Centre uses cutting-edge approaches to gain full understanding of key molecular players and events that can lead to disease, and by doing so, hopes to address prevention and future treatment of many diseases.

The Biochemistry program at York is your gateway to an exciting and rapidly evolving field. Biochemistry is the study of the chemistry of life, and as all fields of biology are increasingly seeking understanding at the molecular and submolecular levels, Biochemistry continues to be vitally important to advancing many areas of biology and biomedical science, including molecular genetics, physiology and the treatment of disease. As a Biochemistry student you will explore the structure and properties of biological molecules and the relationship between their chemical structure and their function in living systems.

This four-year program provides you with hands-on training in the laboratory right from the very first year. A fourth-year research project serves as the capstone course of your degree, preparing you for many challenging careers. York Biochemistry students get meaningful and well paid jobs in research, in industry and in teaching. Others go on to pursue graduate studies, here and at other prestigious universities in Canada and abroad. Many enter professional schools in medicine, dentistry, pharmacy, law and business.

The Law and Society program was established in the early 1970s and is one of the oldest undergraduate programs of its kind in North America. York graduates about 100 students each year, making it one of the largest programs of its type in Canada.

Law is one of the most significant expressions of a modern society's social and political development. In recent years, social scientists from many disciplines have analyzed the interplay between law and society. We live in a period of widespread public interest in law that arises from a concern with problems of social justice, social control and deviance.

The academic disciplines - anthropology, economics, history, philosophy, political science, psychology, sociology - have increasingly focused on such issues as the nature and origin of law; law-making and law breaking; rights and obligations; freedom and responsibility. These are matters of increasing concern to teachers, social workers, businesspersons, doctors and public servants whose professional responsibilities demand a knowledge of the relationship of law to their own fields.

The goals of the Law and Society program are:

• to affirm the intellectual importance of the study of law and society and law in society;
• to provide a framework within which you and the faculty may explore, within disciplines and between them, descriptive and analytic approaches to the subject;
• and to sharpen the appreciation of law as part of the active daily life of the student.

Please note: Law and Society is not a pre-law preparatory program.

German Studies encompasses subjects ranging from language, literature and film studies to intellectual and cultural history, urban studies, political science, museum studies, art history and women's studies.

German is a major language of business, diplomacy and tourism in the European Union and Eastern Europe. It is also the language of the Federal Republic of Germany, Austria, and the largest portion of Switzerland, as well as Liechtenstein, Luxembourg, areas of Northern Italy, Eastern Belgium and Eastern France. Knowledge of German is vital for Canadians who want to compete in the emerging Eastern European market.

This program is divided into two streams:

• German Language, Literature and Culture — all courses but one are offered in German.
• German Culture and Society — you'll select courses that deal with the German-speaking world (e.g. history, political science, humanities). Language requirement applies.

HIGHLIGHTS OF THE GERMAN STUDIES PROGRAM AT YORK:

• Students majoring in German are encouraged to study in Germany for one year. York has Canada's best array of exchange programs with partner institutions in German-speaking Europe in conjunction with the Ontario/Baden-Württemberg program.
• Take advantage of the Multimedia Language Centre (MLC) of York University, located in S117 Ross, is a resource centre dedicated to supporting students who are enrolled in programs of study of language, literature and linguistics.

Humanities is the study of culture. It involves history, art, literature, music, architecture, politics, food - all aspects that help to define and express a specific group of people. The study of the Humanities serves to challenge our common understanding of issues and events, and helps students to develop valuable critical, analytical and communications skills.

The Humanities program in the Faculty of Liberal Arts & Professional Studies will introduce you to the major questions of life as you study issues of social, moral and aesthetic value. Drawing from literature, History, Philosophy, Religion, Fine Arts and popular culture courses, the Humanities program enables you to gain a greater self-understanding and appreciation of the diversity of human cultures and experiences. The program pays special attention to what is unique, particular and unpredictable in human experience.

You can combine studies in the Humanities with a related discipline such as History, Philosophy or Women's Studies, exploring complimentary historical, cultural and gender perspectives.

As a Humanities graduate, you will be well-prepared to face your future lives and careers through well-reasoned decisions and responsible actions. You will be valued by leaders of the high-tech industry and government for your:

• Creativity and broad-based skills;
• Ability to communicate, to sell, to relate and work as part of a team;
• Intellectual curiosity;
• Critical values.

Statistics is a field that provides the foundations and techniques to collect, analyze, and present information in an effective and efficient manner. Recent trends involve a resurgence of interest in methods for informal exploratory analysis of data. This relies increasingly on friendly computing environments supported by efficient algorithms. York's Statistics program is an exploration of the nature of measurement, chance variation, probability, uncertainty, inductive logic and inference, and combines naturally with studies in the life and social sciences.

An increasingly important aspect of modern statistics is the design of experiments and surveys — as well as analyzing the resulting data — in areas of application ranging scientific studies to the insurance industry. Statisticians use surveys to predict the patterns of behaviour of large groups based on relatively small samples.

Through its applications in almost every branch of modern professional life and research, statistics is a fast-growing discipline that provides a statistician with a variety of career opportunities. Statistics is offered as both a Bachelor of Arts and Bachelor of Science options. Why take one instead of the other? All Mathematics students (Mathematics, Applied Math, Statistics, Math for Commerce) take common first- and second-year courses. It is in the third and fourth years that the programs begin to differentiate.

For a Bachelor of Science (BSc) math degree, you will combine your math courses with other science courses such as physics, earth and atmospheric science, biology or computer science.