Handbook : Unit informationEdith Cowan University

School: Arts and Humanities

This unit information may be updated and amended immediately prior to semester. To ensure you have the correct outline, please check it again at the beginning of semester.

Please note that given the circumstances of COVID-19, there may be some modifications to the assessment schedule promoted in Handbook for Semester 1 2020 Units. Students will be notified of all approved modifications by Unit Coordinators via email and Unit Blackboard sites. Where changes have been made, these are designed to ensure that you still meet the unit learning outcomes in the context of our adjusted teaching and learning arrangements.

• Unit Title

  Social Policy

• Unit Code

  CSV3101

• Year

  2020

• Enrolment Period

  1

• Version

  2

• Credit Points

  15

• Full Year Unit

  N

• Mode of Delivery

  On Campus
  Online

• Unit Coordinator

  Dr Hossein ADIBI

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Description

This unit in comparative social policy provides students with theory, knowledge, and skills to understand major tendencies in policy development as they are shaping, and being shaped by, the increasingly interdependent world of the twenty-first century. It explores key areas of social policy and economic policy, including welfare, education, health, housing, income maintenance, taxation, and employment. Australian policy and its outcomes are compared with those of other relevant countries, in order to highlight forces which shape policy and the effects which such policies have on people's everyday lives.

Prerequisite Rule

Students must pass CSV1102

Equivalent Rule

Unit was previously coded CSV4000, HSA3203

Learning Outcomes

On completion of this unit students should be able to:

1. Analyse policy trends, concepts and roles of international organisations which are shaping policy thinking at the national and global level and their impact on Australian society.
2. Critique some of the major trends in Australian social and economic policy.
3. Identify some of the main theoretical influences which have shaped economic and social thinking in different countries.
4. Investigate the historical, cultural, ideological, economic, technical and political forces which shape policy outcomes.
5. Evaluate the arrangements of government institutions and political processes affecting policy choices.
6. Identify methods used in approaching policy from a comparative perspective, and discuss the methodological difficulties.
7. Examine a number of theoretical frameworks.

Unit Content

1. The role of international organisations in the policy process shaping global and domestic policies.
2. Major trends influencing the policy process, academic research, interest groups, lobby groups and social movements.
3. Frameworks for understanding social and economic policy.
4. Forces that structure and restructure policy outcomes.
5. Political culture, ideology and the shaping of policy.
6. Theories of the state and power and the structures and processes through which government decisions are made.
7. Theory and method in comparative policy analysis.

Learning Experience

ON-CAMPUS

Students will attend on campus classes as well as engage in learning activities through ECU Blackboard.

For more information see the Semester Timetable

ONLINE

Students will engage in learning experiences through ECU Blackboard as well as additional ECU learning technologies.

Additional Learning Experience Information

Guest presenters from the field.

Assessment

GS1 GRADING SCHEMA 1 Used for standard coursework units

Students please note: The marks and grades received by students on assessments may be subject to further moderation. All marks and grades are to be considered provisional until endorsed by the relevant Board of Examiners.

Core Reading(s)

• (2020). Australian Social Policy and the Human Services (3rd ed.). Port Melbourne, Vic: Cambridge University Press. Retrieved from https://ecu.on.worldcat.org/oclc/1138942586

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