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LIFE AT THE BOTTOM: THEORY, POLICY AND PRAXIS

NHS2075

Tuesday & Friday 12-2pm (WW-CR3)

Lecturer: Nurhidayahti Mohammad Miharja

Email: [email protected] (mailto:[email protected])

Course Description

What is life like for someone earning less than $1,000 per month? This course examines the
experiences and conditions of those in the lower SES in Singapore. It focuses on three major
challenges they face: housing, food, and education. How they navigate challenges and the nature
and impact of dominant perceptions, policies and programmes aimed at tackling them will be
analysed. Relevant concepts and perspectives from multidisciplinary fields such as urban studies,
public health, social work, and sociology will inform the methodology and content of the module. Field
trips and guest lectures involving stakeholders from the “ground”, including the social service
providers and NGOs, are a central feature of this course.

Course Objectives

Students will gain an understanding of structural factors contributing to the social problems
experienced by those in the lower SES in Singapore and their impact. Students will also be able to
reflect on the extent to which the conditions in which they live are conditioned by policies and other
forms of interventions that impede their well-being and social mobility. The field trips and guest
lectures facilitate exchanges and develop a critical comprehension of structural factors bearing on
these issues.

Overview of Assessments

1. Participation and Quizzes (20% of grade)

Students are to attend classes prepared to discuss the reading materials. They will be assessed
based on their grasp of the main arguments expounded in the readings, ability to apply concepts to
relevant examples, and willingness to raise relevant questions. They are also expected to respond to
the presentations of their peers and articulate their views clearly. (10%)
Students will also be given 2 short quizzes to assess their foundational knowledge on existing
policies pertaining to housing and education. Short articles on policies will be assigned prior to the
quizzes. This is to ensure that students have sufficient knowledge of policies in these areas to
engage with the topic and speakers. (10%)

2. Field visit reflection paper (30% of grade)

Students are to write a 1000-word reflection paper weaving perspectives and discourse they've learnt
in class with learning points from the visit/s. Some questions which they can reflect on include: What
are common/dominant perceptions that service providers tend to have of their clients? What are the
kinds of approaches and interventions/remedial programmes service providers use to address
specific problems faced by their clients? What are some of the challenges experienced by these
agencies in ensuring the effectiveness of their programmes and how did they navigate this? What
more, if any, needs to be done, in terms of policies, programmes or approaches to alleviate or resolve
the problems?

3. Role Play Exercise (25%)

Students will be divided into groups. Within each group, students will take on the role of housing
administrators, service providers e.g. social workers, NGO staff members and different communities
of homeless or at risk of being rental flat dwellers. They are required to roleplay scenario(s) depicting
how in their different roles, they would navigate a housing policy issue affecting the poor. Examples
may include an attempt by a family with young children to appeal for a larger rental flat, or a family
facing a rental increase because their household income has exceeded the $2000 cap for a subsidy,
or a family who is trying to get another rental flat after the first three has been found to be unbearable
due to bug infestation. Competing assumptions, perspectives and attitudes held by different groups
and how they intersect should be judiciously explored. The aim of this exercise is to assess students'
awareness of how theory, policy and practice condition in as much as they are conditioned by
competing considerations and priorities and how the intersection of these affects the well-being of
those affected. Students will be evaluated on how well they are able to assume the different roles and
can creatively and critically showcase the challenges and problems of certain policies and
perspectives on lives. Students will vote for the best team, and the winning team will be awarded
additional marks.

4. Group presentation (25%)

Students will be divided into groups and each group will conduct a 40-minute presentation on their
visit reflections in class on the food charity that they visited. They are required to base their
presentation using the readings and learning points from discussions with the service providers.
Students can use any medium for their presentation (power point slides, video, etc.).
Students are also expected to lead and encourage other groups to pose questions in trying to
understand the different challenges these organisations experience and approaches taken in
addressing the issues of food insecurity. The aim of the assignment is to assess their understanding
of food insecurity - what is food insecurity in the context of Singapore, and how effectively is food
insecurity being addressed? What is the role of agencies in trying to get food for the underprivileged
and what are the limits of such forms of support? This requires a reflection on the discourse on food
insecurity i.e., what is the dominant thinking on the issue, the practical application of concepts and
perspectives that they have learnt in class, what they gather empirically from the discussions they've
had with individuals on the field and their own reflections on the limits of interventions and need for
sustainable support through policy interventions can also be discussed.

5. Note on field visits

Field visits will be planned on Saturdays, and no class for that week.

*Schedule

Week Understanding the lower SES communities | Dominant discourse and competing
1 ideas: Theory, policy and practice

· Teo You Yenn. “Step 1: Disrupt the Narrative.” In This is What Inequality Looks Like.
Singapore: Ethos Books, 2019. 25–46.

· Ong, Q., & Neo, Y. W. Bleeding Hearts or Tough Love: How Do Social Workers Decide?.
In Ng, I. Y. H., & Neo, Y. W. (Eds.), Working with Low-Income Families through The Life
Course: Challenges to Social Services. Singapore: National University of Singapore, 2020:
91-104.

PART I – Housing Insecurity in a Housing Nation

Week
Housing Interventions in a home-owning society
2

· Ng, Kok Hoe, and Yu Wei Neo. 2019. “Housing Problems and Social Work Advocacy in a
Home-Owning Society.” Journal of Social Service Research 46(5):671-84.

· Coles, B., England, J., & Rugg, J. (2000). Spaced Out? Young people on social housing
estates: social exclusion and multi-agency work. Journal of Youth studies, 3(1), 21-33.

Assessment 1a: Quiz (Housing)

· Kessler, R. C., Duncan, G. J., Gennetian, L. A., Katz, L. F., Kling, J. R., Sampson, N. A.,
... & Ludwig, J. (2016). Notice of retraction and replacement: Kessler RC, et al. Associations
of housing mobility interventions for children in high-poverty neighborhoods with subsequent
mental disorders during adolescence. JAMA. 2014; 311 (9): 937-947. JAMA, 316(2), 227-228.

· Bartlett, S. (1998). Does inadequate housing perpetuate children's poverty?. Childhood,

*Guest speaker from family service centre

Week
Field trip #1 to Transitional Shelters
4

Week
Assessment 2: Field Visit Reflection Paper
5

PART II – Food Insecurity in a Food Paradise

Week
Food scarcity, Food Insecurity and COVID
6

· Nagpaul, T., Sidhu, D., & Chen, J. (2020). The hunger report: An in-depth look at food
insecurity in Singapore.

· Lim, A. (2022). 21. Rewriting food insecurity narratives in Singapore. Covid-19 in

Recess Week

Week
Discussion for role-play exercise
7

Week
Food-giving and agency
8

Assessment 3: Role Play Exercise (Day 1)

(Day 2)
 · Beyond Social Services. (2021, September). People Give, Just Take and Eat: Food
Insecurity and Food Aid in a Public Rental Neighborhood in Singapore.

· Han, G., & Zhai, Y. (2023). The association between food insecurity and social capital
under the lockdowns in COVID-hit Shanghai. Urban Studies.

Week
Fieldtrip #2 to Food Charities
9

Week
Discussion for group presentation
10

PART III – Education Lags in an Education Hub

Week
Education, Class-based Parenting and the Skip Generation
11

Assessment 4: Group Presentation­­(Day 1)

· Mokhtar, I. A. (2022). Education as a Social Leveller: Outcomes and Opportunities. In

· Ng, I. Y. (2014). Education and intergenerational mobility in Singapore. Educational

Assessment 1b: Quiz (Education) (Day 2)

Week
*Guest Speaker(s) from the education field
12

Week
Conclusion
13

*Subject to finetuning

Course summary:
Date Details Due

 Group presentation submission due by 23:59

 Reflection paper submission due by 23:59