SA6-502 Health and Welfare Policy

Contents and structure

The course will provide insight into and understanding of questions related to health- and welfare politics. The course gives an introduction to public policy, the administration's role in politics, and what separates the politician from the subject-matter expert. One also delves into coordination and cooperation between sectors and different levels of government, as well as the role of leaders, professionals and users in the welfare state.

Learning Outcome

The course will contribute to the student achieving the following learning outcome:

Knowledge:

• has thorough knowledge about politics, policy formulation, and implementation of public policy, especially in the context of the health and welfare services
• Has thorough knowledge about coordination- and cooperation challenges between services at the same level, and between organizations at different levels
• Has advanced knowledge about the role of the professionals, leaders, and users, in the health and welfare sector

Skills:

• Is able to analyze features of the development of the health and welfare sector, and discuss how these influence the context for leadership, professional practices, and the interaction with users
• Is able to complete a written work with scientific language and style, and which has an active use of theory and research on the policy area

General competence:

• Is able to understand and analyze health- and welfare politics as a context for leadership, innovation, and research from the policy area
• Is able to use theory and knowledge from the academic discipline to reflect on and communicate with both experts and the public about general challenges for the sector and about daily practices in one's own organization

Entry requirements

None

Teaching methods

Lectures, group work. Comments from teacher on the draft of the term paper.

Compulsory learning activities

• Three short papers (800 - 1200 words) to be completed between seminars
• Working in a group with a paper, and present this in plenary paper seminar

The compulsory learning activities need to be approved in order to hand in term paper. More information about the content and requirements of the compulsory learning activities will be given at the start of the course.

Assessment

A term paper about questions or challenges related to health and welfare policy, where the student uses relevant theories and terms from the course. The paper can be written individually or in groups of two students. For individual papers, the length of the paper is approx. 4000 words. If two students write together, the length is approx. 6000 words.

The exam will be assessed on an A - F grades scale, where F is failed.

Students who have failed or have a legitimate leave of absence can hand in a revised version of the paper for new assessment the following semester. If you wish to improve your grade, the revised text can be submitted the next time the exam is held.

Examination support material

All

More about examination support material

Course reductions

• SA6-409 - Politikk, styring og endring i helse- og velferdssektoren - Reduction: 10.5 studypoints
• SA6-410 - Politikk, styring og endring i utdanningssektoren - Reduction: 10.5 studypoints
• SA6-407 - Helse- og velferdspolitikk - Reduction: 15 studypoints