Social Welfare Policies and Programs

Who decides how we respond to poverty, homelessness, health care, or immigration, and who benefits from those decisions? SOWK 222 introduces students to the history, theories, and political ideologies behind U.S. social welfare policy, with attention to how policies can expand opportunity for some groups while restricting or controlling others.

The course is open to students in all majors! It fulfills Carolina Core GSS, is eligible for Graduation with Leadership Distinction in the Community Engagement and Social Advocacy pathway, and is a required course for Social Work majors and minors.

Over three weeks, students move through nine modules. The first week builds a foundation in theories of policy development, political ideology, the history of U.S. social policy, and frameworks for understanding social inequality. The second week applies those frameworks to health, housing, child welfare, criminal justice, immigration, and environmental justice. The third week covers education, the labor market, poverty, and the social safety net.

Throughout the course, students examine how policies affect diverse and oppressed populations, how policies respond to social problems, and what solutions might look like. Students also consider how social workers and engaged citizens help develop, implement, and change policy, and how they can use that knowledge in their own communities and careers.

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)