Section: Conferences
Teaching Social Policy for the Future
Teaching Social Policy for the Future
20 April 2012, University of Edinburgh
One-Day Conference organised by the Social Policy Association
Social Policy, as an academic subject and a series of policies and practices, is facing challenging times, and yet has never been more relevant and important. In the wake of severe public spending cuts following the global financial crisis, dramatic demographic change and fundamental shifts in labour markets and family life, traditional assumptions about the role and purpose of social policy are open to new interpretation. As higher educationenters a new era of high student fees, new expectations and agendas on employability and skills, the teaching of social policy deserves new scrutiny. How new generations of students are taught, what they are taught and the skills they will need to acquire are of great concern if social policy is to make a convincing case for its growing relevance in UK higher education.
This one-day conference gives social policy academics a chance to consider the state of the discipline and what may need to be done to ensure that the subject increases its attraction for undergraduate and postgraduate students. It will present results from a recent survey on social policy teaching in the UK commissioned by the Social Policy Association and address key issues such as research methods teaching; new subject benchmarks; work placements and employability; the 'how and what' of teaching social policy. The conference is designed to stimulate thought and discussion through break-out sessions, and is intended to act as initial stimulus for a series of workshops across the UK over the next eighteen months.
Click here to view the full conference programme.
Click here to view recording of the plenary sessions.
The conference organisers: Ingela Naumann (ingela.naumann@ed.ac.uk), Nick Ellison (n.ellison@leeds.ac.uk), Ann-Marie Gray (am.gray@ulster.ac.uk)
This page was published on 15 May 2012