SOCIAL SCIENCE FOUNDATIONS FOR PUBLIC POLICY

This course gives an overview of the major social science approaches used in the conduct of theory, research and real-world public policy. Social science is an umbrella term that refers to the plurality of disciplines that study society. They include anthropology, sociology, economics, psychology, education, political science, political economy, public administration/public management, gender analysis, and, in some contexts, history, geography and law. These cannot be satisfactorily covered in one semester. To strike an acceptable balance between breadth and depth, this course will cover anthropology, sociology, gender analysis, political science, political economy, public administration/management and geography. These disciplines which, in important ways, inform governmental decisions and public resource allocations will be explored. The aim is to outline, for non-social scientists, the key disciplinary approaches that will enable both policy scientists and policy practitioners to contextualize the work they do.