MArts, BA Social and Public Policy(no longer recruiting)

Year 3

(Award available for year: Bachelor of Arts)

Learning outcomes

1. demonstrate knowledge of:

- UK welfare institutions: origins and development; the social and demographic contexts in which they have operated; their contemporary activities and organisation, including the provision, financing and regulation of social security, education, health and social care, and housing;
- the UK policy process: framework; operation; finance;
- non-governmental sources of welfare (informal, voluntary and private sectors): impact; operation; interaction within mixed economies of welfare;
- main features of the interrelationship between social policies and differently placed communities, families and individuals;
- international and global contexts of social policy including the role and organisation of the European Union (QAA, Benchmark; 3.2).

2. demonstrate an understanding of:

- interdisciplinary approaches to social policy topics and issues;
- the key concepts and theories of welfare, including human needs and social welfare; inequality, poverty and exclusion; citizenship, social difference and diversity; theories of the state and policy making; theories and methods of comparative analysis;
- how different social groups and individuals experience, respond to and contest social policies (QAA, Benchmark; 3.3)

3. demonstrate knowledge and understanding of:

– the scope and application of public policy
– the relationship between public policy and social policy

Transferable (key) skills

Students will have had the opportunity to acquire, as defined in the modules specified for the programme:

- the transferable/key/generic skills necessary for employment related to the area(s) studied;
- the exercise of initiative and personal responsibility;
- the deployment of decision making skills in complex and unpredictable situations;
- the communication of information, ideas, problems and solutions in a variety of ways to a variety of audiences;
- the ability to undertake appropriate further training of a professional or equivalent nature;

Assessment

Achievement will be assessed by a variety of methods in accordance with the learning outcomes of the modules specified for the year/programme and will include:

- demonstrating the ability to apply a broad range of aspects of the discipline;
- work that draws on a wide variety of material;
- the ability to evaluate and criticise received opinion;
- evidence of an ability to conduct independent, in depth enquiry within the discipline;
- work that is typically both evaluative and creative;
Forms of assessment appropriate to the level of study will include, essays, seen and unseen examinations, presentations, research tasks, project reports data analysis and a dissertation.