Department of Social & Policy Sciences, Unit Catalogue 2008/09 |
SP50163 Issues in international social policy 1 |
| Credits: 12 |
| Level: Masters |
| Semester: 1 |
| Assessment: CW 100% |
| Requisites: |
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Aims: To review and evaluate critically the literature on specific areas of social policy using a variety of social science perspectives.
To demonstrate a critical understanding of the diverse trajectories of social policy development in different world regions. To enable students to identify, research and develop their own arguments in specialist areas of international social policy making. To develop practical skills of social policy analysis and evaluation. Learning Outcomes: Knowledge and understanding of social policy challenges and responses under diverse national social, economic and political conditions, in different world regions Ability to analyse and evaluate international social policymaking experiences and outcomes. Ability to analyse critically the relationship between local, national and global processes of social policymaking. Ability to identify, research and develop arguments in specialist areas of international social policy making. Ability to undertake social policy analysis and evaluation applied to a specific area of social policy taken from a comparative or international context. Ability to carry out independent and original analysis of concrete social policymaking problems. Ability to analyse and synthesise multidisciplinary perspectives on the same problem. Content: The overall menu would span the following areas, although only a selection would be offered each year: Social Policy in Knowledge-Based Societies: * Education, training and skills in knowledge-based economies * Social policy and innovation dynamics * Social indicators for knowledge-based economies Health: * Comparative analysis of different health care systems: typologies, funding mechanisms, models of delivery * Public attitudes to health care * Comparative public health policy, in relation to inequalities in health and leading causes of morbidity and mortality Poverty and Social Exclusion: * The social politics of poverty and social exclusion * Conceptualisation and measurement of poverty for comparative study * Policies for poverty and their relation to broader social and economic policies Social protection and labour markets: * Commercialisation, privatisation and liberalisation * The role and limitations of increased reliance on non-governmental organisations, private philanthropy and religious bodies * New forms of universalist support for families Ageing and Pensions: * Comparative demographics * Pension models: World Bank and its critics * Pension trade-offs and the inter-generational contract Migration: * Global competition for scarce social and health service personnel * Tensions between domestic and international dimensions of migration policies * Implications of migration and social policies for different groups of migrants Family: * Family policy in relation to different welfare regimes * Work-life balance: parental leave, maternity rights, childcare, tax/benefit package * Responses to family change: lone parenthood, declining fertility Death, Dying and Palliative Care: * Care of the dying: international perspectives * Palliative care: the implications of cultural variations * Future challenges for health promoting palliative care. Social Care and Social Services: * Practice and policy transfer in personal social services * From institutional to community care : international trends in mental health policy * 'Welfare to work' and the role of social work: international perspectives. |