Module: Disability and Development
Academic year: 2022/23
Position: Module director
University of Leeds, School of Sociology and Social Policy
Module summary: The module will draw on scholarship from disability studies and development studies in order to explore both the creation and position of disabled people in the global south. Attention will be paid to the role that various agents of development play in improving disabled people’s situation, and the usefulness of rights-based approaches and Community-Based Rehabilitation will be critically evaluated.
Module: Contemporary Children, Young People and Families
Academic year: 2022/23
Position: Module director
University of Leeds, School of Sociology and Social Policy
Module summary: This module covers a range of topics related to the central themes of understanding and working formally and informally with children, young people and families. The module introduces students to theories relating to the nature of childhood, youth and family life, the contemporary issues children, young people and families face, and how these are understood and dealt with in policy making. The module builds on teaching team members’ research interests in this area and intends to appeal to students wanting to work with children, young people and families.
Module: Social Policy: Poor Laws to the Present
Academic year: 2022/23
Position: Module director
University of Leeds, School of Sociology and Social Policy
Module summary: This module explores some of the social, political, economic and cultural influences that have shaped the United Kingdom’s welfare state over time. It considers how the Poor Laws laid the foundations for the ‘Classic Welfare State’ established in the 1940s, and how the post-war welfare settlement rested upon false assumptions about the nature of family, of work and of nationhood. Besides examining the policy-making process, theories related to poverty, inequality and social exclusion are introduced to demonstrate how social policy has developed over the years and delimited the redistributive and integrative functions of UK welfare state. The module also examines how the UK welfare state has been reformulated through popular deference to professional authority and, crucially, by ideological critiques of the post-war welfare settlement. For example, differences and commonalities between the so-called ‘Thatcherite’, ‘New Labour’ and ‘Permanent Austerity’ welfare regimes are examined to consider their political manifestations and policy implications. In this respect, the module explores ideologies of welfare and principles of organisation, provision and entitlement that inform the social outcomes and opportunities of citizens. More specifically, students are introduced to key debates and developments within welfare politics to explore how these have impacted on questions of gender, race and ethnicity, disability, poverty and inequality.
Module: Key Debates in Social Policy
Academic year: 2020/2021
Position: Teaching assistant
University of Leeds, School of Sociology and Social Policy
Module summary: This module will engage students in an exploration of key areas of social policy concern, encompassing ideological debates, comparative questions and the policy-making process. Students will be able to apply theoretical and ideological ideas with approaches to qualitative and quantitative data to better understand how social policies operate in the real world, both in the UK and internationally.