Assignment on Best Ch 8 Social Problems Work
In this chapter, Best describes the experience of social workers and police officers who necessarily use discretion in carrying out a social policy. So this assignment, you will EITHER briefly interview someone who applies/interprets/enforces policy for an organization OR report on your own experience applying/interpreting/enforcing a policy, perhaps at your job, or in a volunteer capacity.
For instance, if you are a Resident Assistant, you might interview your Resident Director or write about your own experience; if you are an employee, you might interview your boss or write about your own experience. If you are a leader of a club, you might interview your president or write about your own experience.
Here are four basic questions to ask, although you can modify them to fit the situation.
1. What policy involving other people is relatively simple for you to interpret or enforce?
2. What policy involving other people is more difficult for you to interpret or enforce?
3. What makes those situations difficult? For instance, are you under pressure with limited resources, do people push back, is the policy ambiguous, is the policy flawed, or does the policy conflict with other priorities?
4. Have people attempted to change or clarify this policy? If so, what happened?
If you interview someone, the interview should take about ten minutes. Write a one page summary of the interview or of your experience. Upload your summary on Sakai Assignments and on your blog.
You can make up this interview, as long as it does not sounds too fake.
