Sociology and Social Policy - Practicing Sociology (week 4)

Module: Practicing Sociology


Week 4 – Sociology and Social Policy


Contents
 What is social policy?
 How does it get made?
 What is ‘evidence based policy making’?
 Applied to Universal Credit – we are looking at this area specifically as we are
looking at the phenomena of poverty
 To think what the relationship between sociology and social policy is


What is social policy?
 Something that the government does

 It’s a vague term – there’s a range of different types of documents that makes up
a social policy

 Social policy is government policy made to address social issues

 Refer to sociological dictionaries to get a definition of the terms used in sociology

 They are not detailed plans of action

 Produced by a decision-making body

 May not have specific plans and targets but they may come out of it

 We are looking primarily at welfare policies


How does social policy get made? Looking at Universal Credit as an example
 It has been argued that the Universal Credit has made matters worse
 The welfare system has gotten more complicated
 Lots of people not getting what they were supposed to get
 UC was intended to solve the problems in the old system
 UC was launched in 2010
 UC has been severely criticised in the press – has been more expensive than
anticipated and the impact it has had on people.
 UC has been unpopular


Launching Universal Credit