Seminar on Social Policy History and Analysis

Catalog description

This course is required for all PhD students. It is designed to expose students to some of the major cross-cutting themes in the United States social policy today (e.g., poverty and inequality, universalism and selectivity) and to a selected group from among those currently on the public agenda (e.g., the working poor, immigrants). The overarching goals of this course are that students learn about the major social policies and programs that affect people's well-being or quality of life and various aspects of social service delivery; understand the ways in which direct social work practice enacts social policies and is shaped by them; and develop expertise in understanding social policy content, policy actions of agencies, professional associations, and political bodies, and the skills needed to influence social policy. This course emphasizes the roles that social issues, values, power, politics, the economy, discrimination, and advocacy play in the dynamic policy making and implementation environment. This course thus provides students with the policy related competencies and practice skills for conducting research-informed policy analysis and advocating for policy change. In particular, through lecture and discussion this course will explicitly use issues relating to poverty, inequality, and opportunity with special, but not exclusive, emphasis on these phenomena in American society as an example to illustrate social policy analysis. The course will examine theoretical principles of social policy, US social policy history, poverty and inequality, the causes of poverty and inequality, major social program through policy analysis perspectives, and public policies designed to reduce poverty and inequality and promote opportunity. The course assumes some prior background in social policy. Students without this background will be expected to do some supplementary…