Inequality and Social Policy

Course content

This course aims to prepare students to understand, evaluate and critically engage in contemporary global social problems and social policies to address these problems. It builds on the conceptual framework of inequality, social policy, social rights and social citizenship with a view to examining in detail five major social policy domains reflecting contemporary inequalities, including poverty, education, health, ageing and care. The objective of the course is to enable students to apply their theoretical and conceptual sociological background to concrete social policy issues and to develop an understanding of practical policy-making by considering: what is the problem, who are involved, what are the shortcomings of existing policies, and what are the possible ways to improve those. For this purpose, the course also has a policy-making emphasis by promoting discussions on the basis of global and/or regional policy reports and briefs on contemporary social issues and online policy resources, as well as by encouraging individual and team-work on selected policy issues and in-class exercises.