SOC 6340 Domestic Social Policy

Spring 2011 Classroom: SLC2.203 Tuesday 7 – 9:45 p.m.

Dr. Richard K. Scotch Office: GR3.510 Phone: 972-883-2922
Email: richard.scotch@utdallas.edu Office Hours: Tuesday 5-6 p.m. or by appointment

Domestic Social Policy examines governmental and nongovernmental programs, policies, and
institutions dealing with individuals and families who do not function self-sufficiently within the
American market economy. Beneficiaries of such programs include children and youth, the
elderly, families headed by unemployed or under-employed parents, and people with physical
and mental disabilities. We will begin with a conceptual and historical overview of how social
policy in the United States reflects political economy, culture, demographic trends, and social
and political institutions. We will continue with an examination of poverty, including its various
definitions and differing views on its causes and consequences, and the range of public policy
responses to poverty in the United States. The remainder of the course will examine a series of
current American social policy reform issues on topics including cash assistance (welfare),
education, crime, health care, and retirement. The class will be run as a seminar, with an
emphasis on group discussion of assigned readings and current issues in social policy

Course requirements include: seven biweekly essays on assigned course readings (60% of the
total course grade) and a policy analysis paper (40% of the total course grade). The policy
analysis paper will involve analyzing a significant domestic policy issue to be selected in
consultation with the instructor. (The paper may focus on the domestic policy of a nation other
than the United States.) Guidelines for the paper will be distributed on the first day of class and
posted on eLearning. Students will be required to submit a topic statement on February 1, and an
annotated bibliography on March 1, both of which must be approved by the instructor, and will
be expected to give a class presentation on their papers during the final month of the class. The
paper will be due on the evening of the student’s presentation, and will be returned with
comments within two weeks of submission. Students will have the opportunity to submit a
revised paper by May 10, during exam week.

Required readings include five required (paperback) texts and a variety of web-based material on
current social policy issues. The books are:

Elijah Anderson, Code of the Street: Decency, Violence, and the Moral Life of the Inner City,
W.W. Norton and Company, 1999
Maria Cancian and Sheldon Danziger (eds), Changing Poverty, Changing Policies, Russell Sage
Foundation, 2009.
Sharon Hays, Flat Broke with Children: Women in the Age of Welfare Reform, Oxford
University Press, 2003
Jennifer Hochschild and Nathan Scovronick, The American Dream and the Public Schools,
Oxford University Press, 2003
Michael Lipsky, Street-Level Bureacracy 30th Anniversary Expanded Edition, Russell Sage
Foundation, 2010.

Course Outline (subject to revisions announced in class)

January 11 Introduction to the Course: Historical Overview of Social Policy

No assigned reading

January 18 Poverty Definitions and Policy Responses

Cancian & Danziger, chapters 1, 2, 14
Course Outline (continued)

January 25 Structural and Demographic Trends ESSAY ONE DUE

Cancian & Danziger, chapters 3, 4, 5

February 1 Mobility TOPIC STATEMENT DUE

Cancian & Danziger, chapters 6, 7

February 8 Cash Assistance and Family Policies ESSAY TWO DUE

Cancian & Danziger, chapter 8, 9

February 15 Family, Gender, and Work

Hays, all

February 22 Education and Poverty ESSAY THREE DUE

Cancian & Danziger, chapter 10

March 1 Workforce Development BIBLIOGRAPHY DUE

Cancian & Danziger, chapter 11

March 8 Health, Health Care, and Poverty ESSAY FOUR DUE

Cancian & Danziger, chapter 12

March 15 SPRING BREAK – no class meeting

March 22 School Reform; Student Presentations

Hochschild and Scovronick, all

March 29 Housing & Homelessness; Student Presentations ESSAY FIVE DUE

(eLearning reading TBA)

April 5 Culture, Crime, & the Inner City; Student Presentations

Anderson, all

April 12 Social Security & Medicare; Student Presentations ESSAY SIX DUE
(eLearning reading TBA)

April 19 Social Policy at the Street Level; Student Presentations

Lipsky, all

April 26 Disability Policy; Student Presentations ESSAY SEVEN DUE

(eLearning reading TBA)

May 5 LITERATURE REVIEW PAPER REVISIONS DUE

University Policies

Information on university policies related to this and other classes may be found at
http://go.utdallas.edu/syllabus-policies.