Unit name | Changing Families and the State |
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Unit code | SPOL31008 |
Credit points | 20 |
Level of study | H/6 |
Teaching block(s) |
Teaching Block 1 (weeks 1 - 12) |
Unit director | Professor. Debbie Watson |
Open unit status | Open |
Pre-requisites |
None |
Co-requisites |
None |
School/department | School for Policy Studies |
Faculty | Faculty of Social Sciences and Law |
This course is designed to examine and explore theoretically ‘the family’ and the ways in which social policies construct and reinforce specific family forms. It explores the policy implications of interventions by ‘the state’ into the familial and domestic arenas and considers the gendered nature of these interventions. In particular the unit will address: -Families and family policy in Britain: Examining the ways in which families have changed over time, historical and recent trends in policies. -Kith, kin and support for families through statutory services and friendship networks: the changing expectations of support from family members and kin through the life cycle, and alternatives to the conjugal heterosexual family. -State interventions: gender and age inequalities and state interventions into abuses of power within families in relation to domestic violence and child abuse. -Theorising ‘the family’: looking at theories which attempt to explain the development of the family, and family policy. -Discourses utilised in policy making arenas that construct ideas of risk, vulnerability and deviance of family forms. -The diversity of contemporary families and policy responses to these. -Notion of parenthood and how this is understood for mothers, fathers, siblings, kinship carers.
By the end of the unit students will have acquired a critical knowledge of:
Lectures and seminars
Second year students- Final assessment will be a 3,000 word essay
Third year students- Final assessment for this unit will comprise a 3-hour exam in the January exam period.