Undergraduate - UnitSWK4450 - Social policy and social justice

This unit entry is for students who completed this unit in 2013 only. For students planning to study the unit, please refer to the unit indexes in the the current edition of the Handbook. If you have any queries contact the managing faculty for your course or area of study.

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6 points, SCA Band 1, 0.125 EFTSL

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Level	Undergraduate
Faculty	Faculty of Medicine, Nursing and Health Sciences
Organisational Unit	Department of Social Work
Offered	Caulfield First semester 2013 (Day) Caulfield First semester 2013 (Off-campus)
Coordinator(s)	Dr Philip Mendes

Synopsis

Students will be introduced to the specific role of social work in social policy analysis, practice and advocacy. Areas covered will include key theories in social policy, understanding the link between social policy and the goals and values of social work, ideological critiques of the welfare state and their implications for particular policy areas, the role of lobby groups in social policy debates, and the link between local and global welfare trends.

Outcomes

To describe the meaning and nature of social policy, from different theoretical and practical points of view;
To describe the key trends and philosophies underlying the positions of major political parties;
To apply key theories and ideological perspectives in social policy to selected fields; and to learn how understanding different philosophical perspectives helps both to explain the nature of current policies influenced by particular philosophies, and to increase the options for policy development and change;
To describe the impact of social structure and social policy on welfare service users;
To discuss the role of social policy implementations upon their everyday social work practice as required by the Australian Association of Social Workers Practice Standards for Social Workers which require social workers to "promote and implement policies and practices which would achieve a fair, equitable and effective allocation of social resources; and identify inappropriate or equitable policy goals and outcomes".
To debate marxist, feminist, neoliberal and other ideological critiques of the welfare state, and their implications for particular policy areas;
To critique the roles, strategies, and effectiveness of a range of NGO and consumer advocacy/lobby groups in social policy debates;
To articulate the link between local and global welfare trends.

Assessment

1A) Analysis of current newspaper or journal opinion piece, 20 per cent of grade, 1000 words, meets learning objectives 1 and 3.
B) Analysis of an area of current Australian social policy, 80 per cent of grade, 3500 words, meets learning objectives 2 and 4-8.

Chief examiner(s)

Associate Professor Philip Mendes

Contact hours

2 hours per week