Message from the Director

Welcome to the home page of the newly established Joint Degree Program in Social Policy ("JDP" for short). Inaugurated in the Fall of 2007 as a collaborative effort of the Woodrow Wilson School and the departments of Politics, Psychology and Sociology, we welcome applications from students in all three fields, which are reviewed both by the "home" department and the social policy group in the Wilson School.

Our program follows a "discipline plus" structure. The "plus" involves a deep engagement with the problem of economic and social inequality in advanced post-industrial societies and the developing world.

Students in this program will be awarded doctoral degrees in Politics and Social Policy, Psychology and Social Policy, and Sociology and Social Policy. These titles reflect a fundamental characteristic of the program: students are simultaneously full members of their disciplinary departments and participants in an inter-disciplinary community.

For graduate students in Economics in the third year and beyond, we also offer a special (non-degree bearing) fellowship which provides a one year stipend and tuition support -- and hence full teaching relief -- as they move through the social policy core seminar.

Some 50 members of the Princeton faculty in four social science departments and the Woodrow Wilson School participate through departmentally based courses and a jointly taught seminars offered in students' second, third and fifth years of graduate study.

The social policy seminar series exposes students to the substantive contributions and methodological approaches Economics, Politics, Psychology and Sociology have made to the study of inequality: from the micro-elements of inter-personal perception, judgment and decision-making to the more macro institutional contexts of family structure, neighborhoods, schools, labor markets and political institutions.

Students have the opportunity to develop collaborative research with faculty on the Princeton campus and in the 20 partner institutions of the Global Network on Inequality in Western Europe, Japan, India, South Africa, and Brazil.

This program is designed to appeal to students who want to pursue academic careers in traditional disciplinary departments. At the same time, the "JDP" is intended to attract students who see themselves, now and in the future, as committed to the study of social issues of public importance. We encourage students to engage with think tanks of all stripes, journals of opinion, and any other venue where debates over social policy take place. The joint degree program in social policy addresses some of the most pressing problems we face in the U.S and many other parts of the world where inequality is generating conflict, poverty, prejudice, and diminishing participation in political affairs.

We look forward to your participation!

Katherine Newman, Director Joint Degree Programs in Social Policy