Conception, Scope, and History of
Social Welfare in the United States
WP 700
Fall 2011
Marah A. Curtis, Ph.D.
270 Bay State Road, Room 128
617-353-5371
[email protected]
Office hours by appointment
Section A4, Tuesday 2:00-3:50
Section A6, Tuesday 12:00-1:50
COURSE DESCRIPTION
WP700 is the first of two semesters of required social welfare policy content in
the Foundation year of the BUSSW program. The course is intended to
familiarize students with the development and content of social policies in the
United States, the values and ideologies that have helped generate them, and
the place of social work in the social policy process, both historically and today.
There are multiple sections of the course taught by instructors each using this
common syllabus. The classroom format combines lectures, discussions, and
small group exercises. The size of the individual sections is designed to facilitate
student participation, which is actively encouraged by all instructors.
WP 700 (“Conceptions, Scope, and History of Social Policy”) and WP 701
(“Social Policy Analysis”) serve as prerequisites to Advanced courses students
will later take (one such course required; others available as electives). These
advanced courses investigate particular social problems, vulnerable populations,
or policy settings, and they build on the content of WP 700 and WP 701.
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THIS COURSE SUPPORTS THE ATTAINMENT OF COMPETENCY IN:
Competency 2.1.1 Professional Identity
Competency 2.1.2 Ethical Practice
Competency 2.1.3 Critical Thinking
Competency 2.1.4 Diversity in Practice
Competency 2.1.5 Human Rights and Justice
Competency 2.1.6 Research Based Practice
Competency 2.1.7 Human Behavior
Competency 2.1.8 Policy Practice
Competency 2.1.9 Practice Contexts
Competency 2.1.10 Engage, Assess, Intervene, Evaluate
Specific assignments in this course will assess your attainment of this competency.
Information about the specific competencies and related practice behaviors
addressed in this course and your other MSW courses can be found at
http://www.bu.edu/ssw/students/current/competency-map/
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COURSE OBJECTIVES
By the end of the course, students will be able:
1.
To identify various definitions of social welfare and social work;
2.
To gain an awareness and appreciation of the social, political, and
economic contexts in which social welfare policy is made and carried out;
3.
To better understand controversy about the appropriate roles in promoting
social welfare of individuals and families, the community, government,
and the private sector;
4.
To understand and assess the impact of public policies on vulnerable
populations in America;
5.
To review the scope and components of the social welfare policy system
in the United States;
6.
To identify historical trends and patterns that have shaped social welfare
policies, with particular attention to urban America;
7.
To gain better understanding of the role of the economy and of economic
policy in determining social welfare;
8.
To discuss the role of social work in the development of social welfare
policy and the effect of social welfare policies on the practice of social
work;
9.
To analyze competing ideologies -- conservative, liberal, radical -- and
their view of the role and function of social welfare policy.
TEXT & READINGS
Required:
Jansson, B. (2009). The Reluctant Welfare State (7th ed.). Belmont, Cal.:
Wadsworth Publishing Co.
Schiller, B. The Economics of Poverty and Discrimination (10th ed.). Upper
Saddle River, N.J.: Pearson Prentice-Hall.
Rosenberg, C. (1982). The Cholera Years. Chicago: Univ. of Chicago Press.
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Russell, J. (2011). Double Standard: Social Policy in Europe and the United
States. Lanham, Md.: Rowman and Littlefield.
All other readings are available on-line through Mugar eReserve or on my
Blackboard site.
COURSE OUTLINE
SESSION ONE: INTRODUCTION TO SOCIAL WELFARE POLICY (Sept. 13)
Topics:
1.
Introduction to social problems and social policy
2.
Sectors of responsibility for individual and social welfare
3.
The unique place of government in addressing social problems
SESSION TWO: CONCEPTUAL FRAMEWORKS AND THE SOCIAL
WELFARE SYSTEM (Sept. 20)
Topics:
1.
Locating social problems: The individual, society, and places in
between
2.
Approaches to social welfare: behavioral, residual, institutional, and
egalitarian populism
3.
Matching purpose and population in American social policy
Readings:
Jansson, B. Chapter 1: The Symbiotic and Uneasy Relationship between Clients,
and Social Workers, and the Welfare State.
Marmor, T., Mashow, J., & Harvey, P. (1990). America’s opportunity-insurance
state. In America’s misunderstood welfare state: Persistent myths,
enduring realities (pp. 22-52). Canada: Basic Books.
Starobin, P. (1998). The daddy state, National Journal. Vol. 30(13), 678-683.
Ryan, W. (1971). The art of savage discovery: How to blame the victim. In
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Blaming the victim, (pp. 3-29). New York: Vintage.
SESSION THREE: OVERVIEW OF SOCIAL WELFARE PROGRAMS:
PUBLIC ASSISTANCE PROGRAMS (Sept. 27)
Topics:
1. Bases for welfare: private charity and public assistance
2. Public Assistance and local administration
3. Public assistance and income-related programs
a. Temporary Assistance for Needy Families
b. Supplemental Security Income
c. Medicaid/SCHIP
d. Earned Income Tax Credit
e. Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program
Readings:
Schiller, J.C. Chapter 13: Welfare Programs.
Haskins, R. (2001). Liberal conservative influences on the welfare reform
legislation of 1996, in G.J. Duncan and P.L. Chase-Lansdale (eds.), For
better or worse: Welfare reform and the well-being of families and
children. New York: Russell Sage Foundation.
Kaiser Family Foundation (2004). Medicaid at a Glance. Retrieved from,
http://www.kff.org/medicaid/upload/7235-04.pdf,
Kaiser Family Foundation (2011). Health Coverage of Children: The Role of
Medicaid and CHIP, Retrieved from, WP700 Blackboard Site
Center for Budget and Policy Priorities, Policy Basics, (2009). The Earned
Income Tax Credit. Retrieved from,
http://www.cbpp.org/cms/index.cfm?fa=view&id=2505,
Center for Budget and Policy Priorities, (2011). Introduction to the SNAP
Program. Retrieved
from, http://www.cbpp.org/cms/index.cfm?fa=view&id=2226,
Kaiser Family Foundation (2010). Medicare at a Glance. Retrieved from,
http://www.kff.org/medicare/upload/1066-13.pdf,
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SESSION FOUR: OVERVIEW OF SOCIAL WELFARE PROGRAMS: SOCIAL
INSURANCE PROGRAMS AND CORPORATE WELFARE (Oct. 4)
Topics:
1. Social insurance and the risks of industrial society
2. Social insurance and national administration
3. Social insurance programs
a. Old Age, Survivors, and Disability Insurance
b. Unemployment Insurance
c. Medicare
4. Tax expenditures: deductions, exclusions, exemptions, deductions
Readings:
Schiller, J.C. Chapter 14: The Social Insurance Programs.
Hacker, J. (2006). The new economic insecurity (ch.1), Risking it all (ch.2), in
The great risk shift, New York: Oxford Press.
National Academy of Social Insurance (2011). Social Security Benefits,
Finances, and Policy Options, Retrieved
from, http://www.nasi.org/learn/socialsecurity.
Employee Benefit Research Institute (2004). Tax expenditures and employee
benefits. Washington DC: Author.
Slivinski, S. (2007). The Corporate Welfare State: How the federal government
subsidizes U.S. business, Policy Analysis, 592 (pp. 1-11). Retrieved
from, http://www.cato.org/pubs/pas/pa592.pdg.
SESSION FIVE: THE EUROPEAN INHERITANCE AND THE AMERICAN
EXPERIENCE PRIOR TO THE CIVIL WAR (Oct. 11)
Topics:
1.
The Medieval Tradition
2.
Elizabethan Poor Laws
a. Family responsibility versus government responsibility
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b. Employability: worthy and unworthy poor
c. Residency requirements
3.
Ideology and Welfare
a. Protestant Reformation and the growth of capitalism
b. Eighteenth century liberalism and individualism
4.
The Poor Law in the New Land: Colonial and Post-Colonial America
Readings:
Jansson, B. Chapter 3: Fashioning a New Society in the Wilderness.
Russell, J.C. Chapter 2: The Social View of Medieval Christianity as Prologue.
Russell, J.C. Chapter 3: Secular Transitions and Assumptions.
Williams, H. V. (1944). Benjamin Franklin and the poor laws. Social Service
Review, 15, 77-91.
SESSION SIX: ISSUES AND ATTITUDES IN LATE 19TH CENTURY
AMERICA (Oct. 18)
MIDTERM: TAKE HOME EXAM GIVEN AT THE END OF CLASS
Topics:
1.
Urbanization and industrialization
2.
Laissez-faire: Horatio Alger and the robber barons
3.
The Cholera Epidemics of 1832 and 1866
a.
b.
c.
d
The origins of disease and the epidemiology of cholera
The place of medicine and public health
The expectations of government
Contemporary analogs
Readings:
Jansson, B . Chapter 4: Social Welfare Policy in the 19th Century.
Rosenberg, C. Sections 1 & 3: The Cholera Years, 1832 and 1866.
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SESSION SEVEN: THE PROGRESSIVE ERA (Oct. 25)
MIDTERM EXAM DUE AT THE BEGINNING OF CLASS
Topics:
1.
From Social Darwinism to Progressive Humanitarianism
a. Reform movement:
b. Progressive Era Reforms
c. The Limits of Progressive Reforms
2. The Emergence of Social Work
a. The Charity Organization Movement
b. The Settlement House Movement
c. The micro/macro tensions in early social work
Readings:
Fleming, D. (1963). Social Darwinism. In A. Schlesinger & M. White (Eds.),
Paths of American thought (pp.123-146). Houghton Mifflin.
Jansson, B. Chapter 5: Social Reform in the Progressive Era.
Addams, J. (1910). The first days at Hull House. In Twenty years at Hull-House
(pp.89-112). New York: MacMillan Co.
Bobo, L.D. (2000). Reclaiming a du boisian perspective on racial attitudes. The
Annals of American Academy, 568,186-202.
Massey, D. The Sociology of Race in the United States, In Elijah Anderson and
Douglas Massey (eds.), Problem of the century: Racial stratification in the
United States: New York, Russell Sage Foundation (pp. 3-8).
SESSION EIGHT: THE NEW DEAL (Nov. 1)
Topics:
1. The boom and bust of the 1920s.
2. The Great Depression: Hoover and Roosevelt responses.
3. The principles of the Social Security Act: A break from the past.
4. The programs of the Social Security Act
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5. Public assistance, social insurance, and the gendered welfare state
Readings:
Jansson, B. Chapter 6: Social Policy to Address the Worst Economic
Catastrophe in U.S. History.
Gordon, L. (1992). Social insurance and public assistance: The influence of
gender in welfare thought in the United States, 1890-1935. The American
Historical Review, 97(1), 19-54.
Russell, J.C. Chapter 6: The Origins of Social Policy in Europe and the United
States.
Cochran, C., & Malone, E. (1999). Chapter 5: Economic Theory as a Basis of
Public Policy, in Cochran & Malone, Public Policy: Perspectives
and Choices. New York: McGraw-Hill.
SESSION NINE: FROM APATHY TO HOPE TO RESENTMENT (Nov. 8)
Topics:
1.
The 1950s: poverty and the affluent society
2.
New Frontier and the Great Society
3.
Civil rights and community action
4.
Loss of confidence: Vietnam, Watergate, the oil embargo
Readings:
Jansson, B. Chapter 7: The Era of Federal Social Services: The New Frontier
and the Great Society.
Jansson, B. Chapter 8: The Paradoxical Era, 1968-1980.
Ehrenreich, J. (1985). A house divided: The second crisis in social work, 19601980. In Altruistic imagination: A history of social work and social policy in the
United States (pp. 187-208). Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press. (available
on-line at Mugar eReserves)
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SESSION TEN: CONSERVATISM AND CONSOLIDATION (Nov. 15)
Topics:
1. Conservative Resurgence and the Reagan Administration
2. Clinton as Centrist Democrat: Pitfalls and Possibilities
3. Bush II: The Crest of Conservatism?
Readings:
Jansson, B. Chapter 9: The Conservative Counterrevolution in the Era of
Reagan and Bush, Sr.
Jansson, B. Chapter 10: Reluctance Illustrated: Policy Uncertainty During the
Clinton Administration.
Jansson, B. Chapter 11: Bush’s Quest for Realignment.
Beland, D., & Waddan, A. (2007). Conservative Ideas and Social Policy in the
United States, Social Policy Administration, 41(7), 768-786.
Cochran, C., & Malone, E. (1999). Chapter 6: Economic Policy: Strategies For
Tight Budgets and New Social Needs, in Cochran & Malone, Public Policy:
Perspectives and Choices. New York: McGraw Hill.
SESSION ELEVEN: BARACK OBAMA AND THE SOCIAL CONSTRUCTION
OF TODAY’S POLICY ISSUES (Nov. 22)
Marmor, T., & Oberlander, J. (2010). The patchwork: Health reform, American
style. Social Science & Medicine, 72, 125-128.
Aaran, H.J. (2011). How the GOP Turned Tax Reform into a New Way to
“Starve the Beast”. Urban Institute and Brookings Institution.
Mervis, J. (2011). Obama’s 2012 Vision Clashes with House Cuts in 2011.
Science, 331, 832-833.
Baker, D. & Rosnick, D. (2011). 7 things you need to know about the national
debt, deficits, and the dollar. Center for Economic and Policy Research.
Washington D.C.
Obama, B. (2007). Renewing American Leadership. Foreign Affairs, 86 (4), 2-16.
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SESSION TWELVE: VALUES, IDEOLOGY AND SOCIAL WELFARE (Nov. 29)
FINAL: TAKE HOME EXAM GIVEN AT THE END OF CLASS
Topics:
1. Theories of order and the pluralist model
a. Equilibrium and boundary maintenance
b. Socialization and shared values
2. Theories of conflict and the ruling elite model
a. Hierarchy and social control
b. Alienation and false consciousness
Readings:
Russell, J.C. Chapter: 4: Marx, Durkheim, and the Limits of Laissez-Faire
Capitalism.
Russell, J.C. Chapter 5: From Theory to Ideology.
Parenti, M. Power and Pluralism: A View from the Bottom.
SESSION THIRTEEN: SOCIAL PROBLEM/POLICY TASK FORCE
PREPARATION (Dec. 6)
Topics:
1. Task force purpose and process explained
2. Selection of task force topics
Readings:
Drier, P. (1997). The New Politics of Housing: How to rebuild the constituency for
progressive housing policy, Journal of the American Planning Association,
63(1), 5-21.
Figueira-McDonough, J. (1993). Policy practice: The neglected side of social
work intervention. Social Work, 38(2), 179-188.
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SESSION FOURTEEN: THE FUTURE OF ‘THE RELUCTANT WELFARE
STATE’ (Dec. 13)
Topics:
1. America’s reluctant welfare state in perspective
2. American social politics: mass and elite influences
3. What is “Obama-ism” and will it last?
Reading:
Jansson, B. Chapter 13: Why Has the American Welfare State Been
Reluctant.
ASSIGNMENTS
The two principal assignments in WP 700 are a mid-term and a final examination.
While individual instructors may structure their exams differently, each will hold
students responsible for the following competencies and practice behaviors.
•
•
•
Demonstrate their competency in applying critical thinking through integrating
conceptual approaches, historical development, and value-based issues
surrounding social policy in the U.S. (Policy 2.1.3).
Demonstrate their competency in advancing social and economic justice
through understanding how American social policies marginalize and privilege
different populations and problems and in so doing may ease or reinforce
discriminatory practices (Policy 2.1.5).
Demonstrate their competency in responding to contexts that shape practice
through awareness and understanding of how demographic, economic, and
political developments and shifts affect social policy agendas and choices
and, in turn, the well-being of clients (Policy 2.1.9).
COURSE GRADING CRITERIA
The course grade will be based on command of course material and of the
competencies above as demonstrated through responses to written
examinations, quality of in-class participation, and involvement in other exercises
which individual instructors may organize.
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COURSE POLICIES
Attendance:
Students are expected to attend all class sessions and to inform the instructor in
advance of any absences. Failure to attend class sessions is likely to have a
negative effect on your course grade.
Academic honesty:
Papers and presentations in the School of Social Work must meet standards of
academic honesty and integrity, avoiding any possibility of plagiarism or other
forms of academic misconduct. For specific information about the BUSSW policy
regarding academic misconduct, see Student Handbook: Ways & Means
(http://www.bu.edu/ssw/current/stud_hb/index.shtml).
Writing style and references:
Students are expected to follow the editorial and reference standards set out in
the Publication Manual of the American Psychological Association (2010). This
manual is available at the Mugar Library reference desk. A helpful BUSSW APA
Style Guide can be found
at http://www.bu.edu/ssw/current/academic/index.shtml.
Students with disabilities:
If you have a disability and want to request reasonable accommodation, the
University requires that you consult with Boston University’s Office of Disability
Services for information regarding this process (http://www.bu.edu/disability/).
Academic writing assistance:
If you would like academic writing assistance, information can be found
at http://www.bu.edu/ssw/current/academic/assistance/index.shtml or contact the
BUSSW Office of Student Services.
Electronic devices in the classroom:
Computers may be used to support the learning activities in the classroom, with
permission of your instructor. These include such activities as taking notes and
accessing course readings under discussion. However, non-academic use of
laptops and other devices are distracting and seriously disrupt the learning
process for everyone. Neither computers nor other electronic devices are to be
used in the classroom for non-academic reasons. This includes e-mailing,
texting, social networking, and use of the Internet. The use of cell phones during
class time is prohibited. Please turn off cell phones and refrain from taking calls
unless you are “on call” and have cleared this with the instructor prior to class.
Under such circumstances, please put your phone on vibrate, sit close to a door,
and step out of the room to take the call.
Religious holidays:
The school, in scheduling classes on religious holiday, intends that students
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observing those holidays be given ample opportunity to make up work. Faculty
members who wish to observe religious holidays will arrange for another faculty
member to meet their classes or for canceled classes to be reschedule
Access through Mugar Library Reserve Services
All readings – other than in the books required for the course – will be available
on-line through Mugar Library. To access these files, you must use a computer
that has Adobe Acrobat installed. If you do not have this software, you can
download Acrobat for free – go to www.adobe.com.
In order to access the readings, follow these instructions:
1) Via the Web, go to:
http://www.bu.edu/library
2) Under the heading “Services” in the middle column, click on “Reserve”
3) Click “View a reserve list by course”
4) Type in lower case the course number: ssw wp700 and click on “ENTER.”
5) The list of reserve articles will come up, sorted alphabetically by Author. (If
you prefer to view the list of readings alphabetically by Title, click on the Title
column to change the order of the listings.)
6) To access and read an article, simply click on the title in blue
7) A password box will appear; type in lower case “ssw” and click Submit
8) Adobe Acrobat will come up and proceed to open the chosen article
9) To print articles, you may use your own computer or a computer at the BU
Academic Computer Center. You can either print the article immediately or
save it to your computer’s hard drive or a disk/cd-rom for printing later.
On-line communication with instructor:
I will also post readings and other course materials on my Blackboard 8 site.
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