Social Policy Transformation - 4 credits

How is social policy changed? Key examples from American history are used to learn how social transformation takes place. The course begins with an examination of social movements at the opening of the twentieth century that resulted in child labor laws, women’s suffrage, unemployment compensation, and minimum wage provisions. How did government become a key instrument of social change under the New Deal? What can be learned from the social revolutions of the 1960s: the civil rights and women’s movements? What forces contributed to the rise and success of the Conservative counter-revolution? What is the relationship of leadership, government, and grassroots change? In what respect is social transformation a search for the implementation of American dream as expressed in the Constitution and Bill of Rights? The course closes with the discussion of possible future social transformations growing out of such things as environmental limits to wealth creation, negative population growth, and median age shift.