Teaching Social Policy: Integration of Current Legislation and Media Resources

Abstract

Social work students enter the field of social work for many reasons—from wanting to become clinicians to wanting to advocate for a more socially just world. Social policy classes can be the ideal courses to provide instruction on conducting research on current policy issues. Teaching students about policy advocacy can lead to a class rich with practical application for future legislative action. This article summarizes methods of teaching social policy courses at both the undergraduate and graduate level. It includes details about resources (e.g., newspapers, news programs, blogs, Web sites) that students and instructors can use to track current policy topics.

Keywords:

• social policy
• legislation
• advocacy
• media