Courses

• SSW WP 707: Social Welfare Policy and Programs on Children
  This course analyzes emerging issues and ideas about children and how these affect social policy and practice. It reviews major social and demographic changes in the family that affect the development of national policies designed to protect and provide for the care of children. The course emphasizes policies in such areas as income provisions, adoption, substitute care, neglect and abuse, social services, and employment.
• SSW WP 708: Health Policy Issues in the United States
  This course examines trends affecting the health care system and the public and private sectors' responses, with particular emphasis on the efficacy of planning and regulation as control and change processes. It explores the relationship between medical practice and the public, and its implications for social work.
• SSW WP 710: Family Law and Children's Rights
  This course provides a framework for understanding law and social policy. It examines the impact of law on the social work profession. The class discusses issues of marriage and divorce, child custody and support, children's rights, and legal research.
• SSW WP 711: Substance Abuse Policy
  This course in alcohol and drug policy is designed to provide students with a forum to acquire and synthesize knowledge of policy, research, and service organization in the field. The course will include topics such as alcohol and drug research, social problems that interface with alcohol and drug policy (e.g., poverty, gender, and race discrimination), key issues, controversies and trends, ethics and values issues, and the role of social work in the field of alcohol and drug policy and research.
• SSW WP 713: State Legislative Processes and Welfare Policy
  The focus of this course is on developing an understanding of how social policy may be achieved in the legislative arena at the state level. The course (a) introduces students to theories, research findings, and issues about legislative processes; (b) derives working hypotheses, or action principles, which may guide social work practitioners in the legislative process; and (c) applies these working hypotheses toward achieving adoption of proposals by a state legislature.
• SSW WP 900: Social Program Analysis and Evaluation
  This course prepares doctoral students in the application of analytical methods as a basis for improving public and organizational decision making in social welfare. The political, value, and technical aspects of policy formation and implementation are considered. The course emphasizes the formulation of empirical hypotheses and assessment of the hypotheses against available data.
• SSW WP 901: Sociology of the Social Work Profession
  This course explores the development of social work as a profession. It examines the historical roots of, and key trends in, social work. Readings are taken from sociological literature on professionalization and comparison of several professions within social work. Discussion includes a critical evaluation of the function of "experts" in contemporary American society.
• SSW WP 903: Perspectives on Social Welfare Policy
  Focusing on theory, process, and substance, this course exposes students to different understandings of the American political institutions as they relate to social welfare policy. Attention is paid to institution and other factors shaping and constraining the development of social policies in the United States.
• SSW WP 908: Seminar for Social Welfare Analysis
  This interdisciplinary seminar features working papers from researchers across many fields of study, including: social work, urban planning, sociology, economics, political science, history, geography and anthropology whose work focuses on issues broadly related to social welfare, such as: health and healthcare policy, housing policy, youth development, child welfare, aging, non-profit and public organizations, workforce development, welfare policy, low-income work and family, community development, mental health and social welfare state development. Rather than narrowly focusing on a particular problem area or level of intervention this seminar seeks to engage multi-disciplinary scholarship at the policy, organizational and practice level to explore pressing social problems. This seminar is open to all doctoral students at Boston University and universities in the consortium. Masters students interested in a research career may take this course by permission only.

Note that this information may change at any time.

Back to full list of School of Social Work