HECOL 640
Family Policy Issues
Fall 2025
Readings
- New perspectives, 5th Ed. Don Mills: Oxford. Past editions of the textbook are not acceptable as much of the statistical information has been updated in this most recent version. There are limited copies available on short loan from University Libraries
Winter 2020
Topics
- What is family policy and why do we need it?
- Historical and political foundations of Canada’s social welfare state, Part I
- Historical and political foundations of Canada’s social welfare state, Part II
- Policy 101
- identify and critically examine current policy issues faced by families
- identify and analyze assumptions, values, and biases underlying rationales for family policy
- write a concise, informative, and relevant policy brief
- To understand the resilience of Indigenous families in historic context
- To understand some of the keys issues in Canadian approaches to Indigenous child welfare policy
- To explore current challenges with child welfare policy and its impact on Indigenous families
- To understand the key issues and debates in child care policy
Readings
- New perspectives, 4th Ed. Don Mills: Oxford. (
- Béland, D., & Mahon, R. (2016). Advanced introduction to social policy. Edward Elgar Publishing
- Messenger, W., Brown, J., Bruyn, J., Montagnes, R. (2013). The concise Canadian writer’s handbook, 2nd Ed. Don Mills: Oxford University Press
- Doucet, A. (2018). Paid and unpaid work: Connecting households, workplaces, state policies, and communities. In. Albanese, P. (Ed). Canadian Families Today: New Perspectives, 4rd edition. pp. 183-200. Don Mills: Oxford
- Dotti-Sani, G. M., & Scherer, S. (2018). Maternal employment: Enabling factors in context. Work, Employment and Society, 32(1), 75-92
- Blumm, S., Koslowski, A. & Moss, P. (2017). International Review of Leave Policies and Related Research 2017
- What are the different types of leave policies outlined by Blumm, Koslowski, & Moss (2017)?
- Watts, V. (2018). Indigenous Families. In Albanese, P. (Ed). Canadian Families Today: New Perspectives, 4rd edition. pp. 245-266. Don Mills: Oxford
- Gerlach, A. J., Browne, A. J., Sinha, V., & Elliott, D. (2017). Navigating structural violence with Indigenous families: The contested terrain of early childhood intervention and the child welfare system in Canada. The International Indigenous
Sources
- Course catalogue ↗2026–2027
- HECOL 640 FAMILY POLICY ISSUES · Reading-list link; contents not retrieved ↗
- 2016-Winter-HECOL-640-SEMINAR-B1 ↗2016
- 2020-Winter-HECOL-640-SEMINAR-B1 ↗2020
- 2025-Fall-HECOL-640-LECTURE-A1 ↗2025
- Additional readings are supplied through the course LMS. Partial automated extraction.
- Additional readings are supplied through the course LMS. Partial automated extraction.