Social and Public Policy

Social and public policy with an ethics and justice focus is a degree that brings together the empirical analysis of how welfare systems and public services operate with the normative philosophical questions about what justice requires and what ethical frameworks should guide policy. Social and public policy examines poverty, inequality, housing, health, education, criminal justice and the institutions and processes through which governments attempt to address social problems. Ethics and justice adds the capacity to evaluate those institutions and policies not just in terms of their effectiveness but in terms of their fairness, their treatment of rights and their alignment with competing conceptions of what a just society looks like.

At the University of York you will study social and public policy with ethics and justice over three years of full-time study, on a programme designed to help you understand and improve societal responses to social problems and disadvantage, nationally and internationally. A sandwich year and the opportunity for a year abroad extend the programme with substantial professional and international experience, and work placement is integrated throughout, connecting your academic analysis to real policy, research and advocacy environments. The typical tariff of 136 reflects the analytical demands of a programme that requires both empirical social science skills and philosophical reasoning.

Graduates work in the civil service, local government, think tanks, international organisations, social research bodies, the voluntary and community sector, human rights organisations, health and social care management, education and policy-facing journalism. The combination of social policy analysis and ethical reasoning is particularly well suited to roles that require both understanding how systems affect people and evaluating them against standards of fairness and justice. Many graduates go on to postgraduate study in social policy, public policy, philosophy, international development or law, and York's strong research culture in both social policy and philosophy provides a robust academic foundation for that progression.