Navigation

 

Department of Sociology & Crime, Law and Justice
211 Oswald Tower
The Pennsylvania State University
University Park, PA 16802

Phone: 814-865-2527
Fax: 814-863-7216

College of the Liberal Arts

SOC 440 - Family Policy

This course is designed to provide an in-depth examination of family policy.  Students will identify and critically analyze major issues, controversies, and policies that affect families.  Attention will be devoted to recognizing both intended and unintended consequences of family policies and understanding policy challenges and trade-offs.  Students will gain an understanding of how policies are shaped by facts and myths, as well as our values.  Students will examine historical and current trends in family patterns (e.g., divorce, women's labor force participation, nonmarital births) to understand the implications they hold for individuals, families and society.  Students will gain an awareness of the social, economic, historical, legal, and political contexts within which family policies exist and are proposed.  Although the main focus is on U.S. family policy, some time will be devoted to learning about family policies in other countries.  We will learn about several specific family policies in-depth (e.g., welfare), but a final goal is to help students develop a general way of looking at family policy that they can then use to understand any issue of family policy that unfolds throughout their lifetime.  This course will foster thoughtful reflection and critical thinking, writing skills, research skills, and skills of synthesis, logic, and argument.  Course goals will be accomplished through course readings, writing assignments, lectures, class discussions, debates and group projects.