Course summary

Social Policy provides an exciting opportunity to critically analyse contemporary social issues related to human wellbeing, inequality, disadvantage and crime. You will explore real-world challenges in a global context, drawing on social, political, public policy and economic theories. This course allows you to add a specialism in the study of Criminology to the Social Policy degree. It explores the nature, extent and causes of crime, justice, social harm and deviance in national and international contexts, as well as examining the policy responses to them within a broader conceptual and theoretical framework of social policy and related social sciences subjects. Social Policy at Bristol addresses some of the key questions of our time. What should we do about inequality? Why does poverty persist? What can be done about the climate crisis? How can citizens engage with policy? Adding Criminology extends this to questions such as: what are the serious crimes and other social harms that people experience? Why do they occur? How effective are criminal justice systems, policymakers and governments in tackling and responding to crimes and social harms?