This sequence of recommended courses teaches students the conceptual and technical knowledge and practice behaviors underlying policy planning, analysis, and evaluation in social welfare. The goals of the Policy cluster are:

• To instruct students in modes of analyzing social welfare policies systematically through the construction and use of formal conceptual policy design frameworks, empirical evidence, and policy arguments.
• To assist students in learning the analytical and quantitative skills of cost-benefit and cost-effectiveness analysis, decision analysis, causal modeling, survey research, and field experimentation.
• To deepen students' understanding of the political and ethical dilemmas which accompany most policy making and evaluation problems in social welfare.

Foundation course
45600 Policy Analysis: Methods and Applications

One substantive elective from the list below
42912 Work and Family Policy: Policy Considerations for Family Support
44800 Urban Adolescents in Their Families, Communities, and Schools: Issues for Research and Policy
45112 Contemporary Immigration Policy and Practice
46412 The Evaluation of Social Welfare Programs and Policies
46622 Key Issues in Health Care: An Interdisciplinary Case Studies Approach
47222 Promoting the Social and Academic Development of Children in Urban Environments
47500 The Health Services System
47712 Perspectives on Urban Poverty
48800 Child and Family Policy
49022 Health and Aging Policy
49412 Nonprofit Organizations and Advocacy for  Social Change
60300 Workforce and Workplace Development: Inequality in Employment
60400 Poverty, Inequality, and the Welfare State
61100 Seminar in Violence Prevention
61500 Urban Education and Educational Policy