Courses: Social Policy

Teaching Staff

Prof. W. van Oorschot (Tilburg university, the Netherlands)

Objectives

The objectives of this course are:

  • to increase students’ knowledge of and insights in the main structural and cultural aspects of social policy, placed in their historical and present day contexts
  • to familiarize students with critical analysis of the intended and unintended social consequences of social policy, as well as with recent trends in social policy reform and underlying debates
  • to make students aware of and knowledgeable about present day social and economic challenges for social policy
  • to offer practical training in academic literature search, presentation and debate

 

Contents

Social policy will be presented as a modern social institution, established in reaction to the 19th century “social question”, with origins in various welfare traditions, like charity, Poor laws, Friendly Societies, and family bonds. The developmental stages of social policy and its economic, political and cultural drivers will be sketched out briefly. As any social institution social policy has structural and cultural characteristics, which may vary over time and between countries. The structural aspects are discussed with reference to “traditions of social security” and “welfare regime types”. The cultural aspects are discussed in terms of principles of redistributive justice, solidarity and deservingness, and their manifestation in policies and public attitudes. The economic, social and moral outcomes of the social policy institution may be intended or unintended, and be subjected to different interpretations in different social policy systems. In this course all of these aspects will be critically discussed. The final part of the course will pay attention to recent trends in social policy reform concerning retrenchment, reconstruction and expansion of welfare entitlements, as well as to important international and domestic challenges to European welfare states related to globalization, migration, population ageing, changing gender roles and flexibilisation of work.