Designing Policies and Policy ChangeCornell Course

Policy is an instrument for coordinating people's behavior in various social situations. Public policy, often created and enacted by governments, can be either a source of inequity or a means for advancing equity, depending on its design and effects. In this course, you will use a number of methods to define a problem your community is facing, determine a policy goal you aim to achieve, and identify someone whom you can influence to create change. You will discover how to ensure the policy goals you pursue also help to promote change to the social structures and systems that persistently create inequity. You will examine the limits that laws and social norms put on the types of activism you can use to achieve your policy goals. You will then reflect on examples of groups who have effectively created change and identify the strategies and tactics they used which could also be useful for you.

At the end of the course, you will have developed a policy goal consistent with equitable development as well as a plan for how you could go about achieving that goal, which you can share with others to build collective action for community change.