Competences

a) Understand the differences yet close relations between learning and education, work and the economy;

b) Critically evaluate the importance of the leisure industry especially in postmodern societies;

c) Expose social studies students to local and global educational opportunities, including EU programmes;

d) Explore, in an interactive classroom environment, various career paths.

Knowledge 

a) Demonstrate understanding of the ideas on education of philosophers and educators, like John Dewey, Paolo Freire and Maria Montessori;

b) Examine a spectrum of sociological theories of education, such as the Functionalist theory, the Marxist theory and the Interactionist theory, focusing on the ‘hidden’ curriculum;

c) Analyse the National Curriculum Framework, the different types of schooling in Malta (State, Church and Independent), the different levels of schooling (primary, secondary, post-secondary, tertiary) and the difference between formal, non-formal and informal education;

d) Relate the idea of lifelong learning to the idea of the ‘portfolio’ worker;

e) Comprehend ‘Fordism’, ‘post-Fordism’ and automation;

f) Recognise the different economic sectors (primary, secondary, tertiary and quaternary), cooperatives and Small and Medium-sized enterprises, economic systems (centralised, free market and mixed), the transformations of work from pre-industrial to post-industrial, unemployment,
occupational mobility, and industrial relations;

g) Demonstrate understanding theories of leisure, such as the postmodern theories of Lyotard and Bauman, leisure and identity, the ‘tourist gaze’ (Urry).

Skills

a) Initiate discussions on the educational process and expand on the similarities and differences between the educational system in Malta and that of other countries across the world;

b) Explore the Maltese economy vis-à-vis other types of economies, namely more ‘centralised’ ones and more ‘free’ ones, and be able to evaluate the evolution of the world of work in Malta;

c) Analyse leisure patterns and leisure pursuits in a critical manner and foster a ‘critical eye’, among social studies students, of the so-called ‘free’ time.