This unit offers students an introduction to social policy as an academic discipline and as a substantive area of research and practice in the social sciences. The unit introduces students to the major substantive policy areas, institutions, and analytical approaches in social policy. We will also examine social policy systems. These include the political and historical context of welfare states, comparative social policy provision and competing social policy discourses and traditions. The unit acknowledges that there is a close interplay between worldview, social theory and applied social policy. You will be able to develop existing interests and expertise and engage in assessment that is professionally relevant. Topics: + Introduction + Sociology of social problems + The history of Australian social policy + Welfare states + Power and policy + Discourse of Governmentality + Street level Bureaucracy + Human rights in policy + Neoliberalism and policy + Risk as a policy initiative + New paternalism + Review