Objectives of the course are a) to provide the informative and conceptual bases that allow to frame social policies in their modern historical evolution and to decode the meaning and orientations of the interventions that can be carried out in the field of social protection and b) provide an essential framework of the main regulations governing the social services sector.

At the end of the course the student:
- knows the aims of modern social policies and their historical evolution and is able to place today's guidelines for social protection within the framework of welfare regime types;
- is able to appropriately place the sectoral interventions of social protection in the scenario of contemporary social policies;
- has a conceptual and terminological heritage suitable for discussing the main themes of the social policy in an appropriate manner;
- has learned the legal bases governing the local systems of social services and knows the main laws concerning the social services sector.