Social Welfare Policies and Programs

This course helps students develop a conceptual framework for understanding social policy and social policy making. It introduces classical conceptualizations and definitions of social policy and theories of social policy development (e.g., pluralist, rational choice, elitist, incrementalism, conflict). It engages students to reflect on the role of values and political ideologies in social policy making. Anti-oppressive theoretical frameworks are employed to examine historical and systemic social inequities in the U.S. Main tenets of anti-oppressive theories (e.g., critical race, intersectionality and conflict) and approaches to dismantling systemic injustice are introduced.

These conceptual frameworks are appliedas students engage in a historical analysis of nine social policy domains and the areas of social problemsthey tackle: health disparities and health care policies, residential segregation and housing policies, foster care disproportionality and child welfare policies, mass incarceration and criminal justice policies, education inequality and education policies, labor market inequality and policies, violation of human rights and immigration policies, environmental injustice and environmental policies, poverty and safety net policies. The pervasive and powerful effects of social inequality are traced through a historical survey of U.S. social policies, with two goals: first, to understand how systems of oppression reinvent themselves and second, to understand how to break the cycles of systemic oppression by changing and developing social policy and engaging in advocacy for social justice.

Learning Outcomes/Objectives

 Students who successfully complete this course will be able to:

1. Apply anti-oppressive theory to analyze the tensions between redistributive justice and social control in social welfare policy. (5.a)
2.  Explain how philosophical, ideological, political, and economic factors have influenced the development of U.S. social welfare policies and programs. (5.b)
3. Analyze the effects of social and economic policies and programs on diverse, vulnerable, and oppressed populations. (5.a, 5.b)
4.  Assess the purpose and role of the social work profession in the development, implementation, and maintenance of social welfare policies and programs (1.b, 3.b)