Child Development and Social Policy

Catalog description

The purpose of this course is to focus on major US social policies impacting our most vulnerable subpopulations of children living in poverty. The class will explore how developmental science can provide a broad conceptual framework to inform the construction of social policies for children and evaluate their effectiveness. Since much of the social policy issues for children in the US public square are currently hotly debated, the class format will incorporate debate and require students to actively research and defend positions on existing policies. Class size will be set at a level to maximize interaction and involvement.