Unit Synopsis
Social policy is one of seven methods of change used in social work practice. This unit explores the historical, political and normative dimensions of social policy and policy-making in Australia and the international context. You will explore concepts such as the welfare state and neo-liberalism and you will examine and critically analyse social policy that is relevant to human service contexts.
Details
| Level | Undergraduate |
|---|---|
| Unit Level | 3 |
| Credit Points | 6 |
| Student Contribution Band | SCA Band 4 |
| Fraction of Full-Time Student Load | 0.125 |
| Pre-requisites or Co-requisites |
120 credit points of study must include SOWK13009 and SOWK13010 Important note: Students enrolled in a subsequent unit who failed their pre-requisite unit, should drop the subsequent unit before the census date or within 10 working days of Fail grade notification. Students who do not drop the unit in this timeframe cannot later drop the unit without academic and financial liability. See details in the Assessment Policy and Procedure (Higher Education Coursework). |
| Class Timetable | View Unit Timetable |
| Residential School | No Residential School |
Unit Availabilities from Term 2 - 2026
Attendance Requirements
All on-campus students are expected to attend scheduled classes - in some units, these classes are identified as a mandatory (pass/fail) component and attendance is compulsory. International students, on a student visa, must maintain a full time study load and meet both attendance and academic progress requirements in each study period (satisfactory attendance for International students is defined as maintaining at least an 80% attendance record).
Recommended Student Time Commitment
Each 6-credit Undergraduate unit at CQUniversity requires an overall time commitment of an average of 12.5 hours of study per week, making a total of 150 hours for the unit.
Assessment Tasks
| Assessment Task | Weighting |
|---|---|
| 1. Online Quiz(zes) | 30% |
| 2. Essay | 35% |
| 3. Written Assessment | 35% |
This is a graded unit: your overall grade will be calculated from the marks or grades for each assessment task, based on the relative weightings shown in the table above. You must obtain an overall mark for the unit of at least 50%, or an overall grade of ‘pass’ in order to pass the unit. If any ‘pass/fail’ tasks are shown in the table above they must also be completed successfully (‘pass’ grade). You must also meet any minimum mark requirements specified for a particular assessment task, as detailed in the ‘assessment task’ section (note that in some instances, the minimum mark for a task may be greater than 50%).
Past Exams
All University policies are available on the Policy web site, however you may wish to directly view the following policies below.
This list is not an exhaustive list of all University policies. The full list of policies are available on the Policy web site.
Feedback, Recommendations and Responses
Every unit is reviewed for enhancement each year. At the most recent review, the following staff and student feedback items were identified and recommendations were made.
Source: SUTE UNIT COMMENTS REPORT - T2, 2024
It would be great to have more resources available in the weekly content.
Weekly content will be further revised to make it clearer where students can access additional readings and resources
Additional weekly content was added to ensure that there are more resources available for students to extend their learning.
Source: SUTE UNIT COMMENTS REPORT - T2, 2024
It would be good to be able to review the quiz questions so I know which ones I got wrong and can clarify my thinking.
Further information will be provided to students so that they can interpret their quiz results and see which questions they answered correctly and which ones they answered incorrectly.
Further information was provided about how students can access quiz results. In addition, the unit coordinator provided a report via Moodle to explain quiz results overall and how to interpret individual results.
Source: SUTE UNIT COMMENTS REPORT - T2, 2025
I enjoyed the breakdown of the quiz over three parts, that was helpful to break up the workload. Developing the social policy brief was interesting, and I enjoyed the political side of social work more than anticipated.
Continue to provide a high-quality and consistent experience in this unit.
In Progress
On successful completion of this unit, you will be able to:
- Analyse the historical development of social policy in Australia and the wider international context of social policy
- Evaluate the inherent value-judgements associated with social policy development and implementation
- Critically reflect on social policies that are relevant to the human services
- Evaluate theories of policy development as they apply to social policy making in Australia.
- Articulate the strategies that social workers can engage in to influence policy development and advocate for positive policy reform
| Assessment Tasks | Learning Outcomes | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | |
| 1 - Online Quiz(zes) | • | • | • | ||
| 2 - Essay | • | • | • | ||
| 3 - Written Assessment | • | • | • | ||
| Graduate Attributes | Learning Outcomes | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | |
| 2 - Problem Solving | • | ||||
| 3 - Critical Thinking | • | • | • | • | |
| 4 - Information Literacy | • | • | • | • | • |
| 7 - Cross Cultural Competence | • | • | |||
| 8 - Ethical practice | • | • | |||
| 9 - Social Innovation | • | ||||
| Assessment Tasks | Graduate Attributes | ||||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 10 | |
| 3 - Written Assessment | • | • | • | • | |||||||
| 2 - Essay | • | • | • | ||||||||
| 1 - Online Quiz(zes) | • | • | • | • | |||||||