Week four is asynchronous. In Edin and Shaefer (2016), students will read about the impact of poverty on housing. Students read two chapters in Linquiti (2022), focusing on logical reasoning and how we collect and evaluate evidence in policy analysis. There are forums where students can reflect on housing challenges, engage with the textbook’s end-of-chapter discussion questions, practice applying reasoning methods, begin developing the evidence base for their policy analysis papers, and examine the distinction between advocacy and neutral policy analysis. I will have a lecture video talking about logical reasoning and how it can be applied to policy analysis. The agenda includes:

• Week four tasks
• Applying logical reasoning to a social policy

The learning objectives this week include:

• Distinguish between deductive, inductive, and abductive reasoning and identify how each applies to social policy analysis
• Examine the impact of housing instability on individuals and families living in extreme poverty and connect those challenges to policy-level gaps and responses
• Describe the distinction between policy advocates and policy analysis professionals and reflect on its implications for social workers who occupy both roles simultaneously
• Evaluate the strength and appropriate use of different types of evidence in the construction of policy arguments.
• Begin identifying and organizing evidence for the policy analysis paper topic.