Department of Economics & International Development, Unit Catalogue 2007/08 |
EC50164 International development and poverty |
| Credits: 6 |
| Level: Masters |
| Semester: 1 |
| Assessment: CW 100% |
| Requisites: |
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Aims:
* To familiarise students with a history of ideas about development. * To introduce alternative paradigms for thinking about development. * To enable students to share conceptions of the development process. * To introduce students to the different ways in which poverty has entered debates over how development assistance should be organised. * To relate these to wider development paradigms. * To consider how these paradigms have affected donor and government policies. Learning Outcomes: By the end of this unit students should (a) have a clearer and more critical understanding of their own ideas and experiences of development (b) be able to locate and evaluate their ideas in relation to the academic literature on development. Students should also have a critical understanding of issues around the conceptualisation and measurement of 'poverty' and related explanations, ideologies and recommendations for praxis. They will have improved group-work, analytical and empirical research skills, and be better able to express themselves through different modes of writing and presentation (such as Briefing Papers), and to make links between values, explanations, concepts, measures, empirical material, policy and policy outcomes. Skills: * Cross-cultural and interpersonal sensitivity (Taught/Facilitated) * Comprehensive and scholarly written communication (e.g. essays) (T/F/Assessed) * Effective oral communication (e.g. seminar presentations) (T/F) * Ability to select, summarise and synthesise written information from multiple sources (T/F/A) * Ability to synthesise multidisciplinary perspectives on teh same problem (T/F/A) * Ability to produce work to agreed specifications and deadlines (T/F/A) * Concise, time-bound and effective written communication (e.g. briefings/exams) (T/F/A) * Ability to select, analyse and present numerical data (T/F/A) * Ability to develop rigorous arguments through precise use of concepts and models (T/F/A) * Ability to work effectively as part of a group or team (T/F/A) Content: Development ideology and practice; development studies as a post-colonial discipline; dependency and globalisation; actors' struggles; development ideas and gender; donor fashions. The experience of poverty; development paradigms and the conceptualisation and measurement of poverty; development paradigms and the causes of poverty; social policy for developing countries; development paradigms and anti-poverty praxis; country case studies. |