Undergraduate Students

Although this is a Graduate department, we do offer some teaching in Social Policy to current Oxford undergraduate students. Our eight week Social Policy option paper is available to students in the Department of Politics and International Relations (DPIR) reading for the Politics, Philosophy and Economics (PPE) and Modern History and Politics (MHP) degrees.

The Social Policy option paper explores the nature and development of social policy and welfare arrangements and contemporary policy problems and challenges. The key framework for analysis is the ‘mixed economy of welfare’ – the shifts in the relative importance of the state, the market, the voluntary sector and the family. The course focuses on Britain, but seeks to set the British experience in comparative perspective.

In the first four weeks students must currently read the following compulsory topics: 

• Introducing Social Policy and ‘the Welfare State’

• The Changing Nature of the Welfare Mix

• Worlds of Welfare

• Analysing Social Policy

 In the second half of the course students currently select four topics from the following:

• Social Policy and Ageing

• Poverty, Inequality and Social Exclusion

• Health and Health Policy

• Education Policy

• Family Policy

• Housing and Homelessness

• Social Policy and the Environment

• Labour Market Policy

The course is taught through the Oxford tutorial system in which undergraduate students are tutored by faculty members and fully trained DPhil students in the Department of Social Policy and Social Work. The course is accompanied by a lecture series which runs for eight weeks in Michaelmas term.

For more information about the course content please see the current reading list.  For any other queries or to register on the course please contact Fran Bennett (Course Convenor) or Bryony Groves (Course Administrator).