SOC 381: social context for development

Course Lecturers:

Professor: Dr. Dwight Jackson, PhD.

Course Description:

This course is an introduction to development and development theory. Students will acquire knowledge of and the ability to apply a variety of development strategies and methods. During the field component of the course students will be exposed to programming and sites where they will be able to apply the content material for assessing and recommending program alterations within the context of specific communities. Students will become acquainted with the Millennial Development Goals and their relevance to the situations in East Africa. Students will be exposed to a variety of strategies designed to involve members of the community in the process of development. Strategies for funding community development projects locally and internationally are explored.

Learner Outcomes:

At the conclusion of this course, each student will be able to:

1. Describe the Millennial Development Goals.
2. Identify and appropriately utilize principles of transformational development within a community context.
3. Explain how the principles considered can be applied within the context of humanitarian aid.
4. Understand and apply both strength and deficit models of community assessment.
5. Place community within the larger social and cultural contexts that impact the lives of residents.
6. Describe the impact of culture upon both the definition of community and community problems.

Grading for Course:

• Daily Journals             200 pts
• Paper                      100 pts
• Project                    300 pts
• Total                      600 pts

Grading Scale:

• 95-100       A
• 92-94        A-
• 89-91        B+
• 85-88        B
• 82-84        B-
• 79-81        C+
• 75-78        C
• 72-74        C-
• 69-71        D+
• 65-68        D
• 62-64        D-
• 61-          F
  

Assignments:

1. Class Participation: All students are expected to come to class prepared to participate in the discussions. This means that reading assignments will be completed by the day they appear in the syllabus. While no points are added for expected class participation, students who fail to add to the class experience for other students and the instructor by preparation and contributing to class discussions will be in danger of a grade reduction of up to 5%.
   
2. Daily Journals: Each student will maintain a journal of their readings, class discussions, and field experiences. This is not a travel log but a reflection journal. The journal will be evaluated upon the consistency (minimum of 5 entries per week) and level of engagement (description only will earn 75 for example; identifying concepts and processes will earn a 85; and demonstrating an effort to integrate new concepts and the challenges of the field will earn a 95 or higher).
3. Paper: The Constraints of Social Structure for Development. Each student will prepare a process paper in which they will demonstrate their understanding of both developmental concepts and the functions of social structure. The paper will also provide the student with an opportunity to develop a more comprehensive framework for assessing development.
4. Project: Each team of students will present a community assessment and development proposal during the last week of classes.
   
   

Policies and Expectations:

• Attendance
  Students are expected to be present for every meeting of the course. Success in the course depends heavily on one’s attendance and participation in the classroom. The instructor has e-mail and voice-mail. The instructor must be notified in advance for consideration of an excused absence. Even if the absence is excused, the student is fully responsible for any homework or lessons that were assigned or covered in the missed session.
  
  
• Academic Integrity and Honesty
  Students should practice academic honesty. The faculty will discourage all academic dishonesty, cheating, and plagiarism, and will encourage responsible conduct. The faculty has defined cheating as offering the work of another as one's own; for example:
  • giving or receiving aid during an examination, turning in written work prepared partially or wholly by another
  • claiming to have done laboratory work or outside reading that was not completed
  • failure to cite sources used in a research paper or oral presentation.
    
    
• The faculty is particularly concerned that many college students are tempted to plagiarize. Faculty members are urged to explain carefully the correct methods for fully documenting an author's work. The faculty has defined plagiarism as follows:
  
  
  1. Copying all or part of a theme, examination paper, library reading report, or other assigned written work from another person's production;
  2. Submitting as one's own, work that was actually done by another;
  3. Incorporating passages in term papers from a source book without using quotation marks and footnotes to indicate clearly what has been borrowed;
  4. Using in collateral reports or book reviews the opinion of a professional literary critic – or a campus friend – as though it were one's own original thought;
  5. Unauthorized copying of workbook answers of any sort.
     
     

Teaching and Learning Methods:

This course will take advantage of several learning opportunities. Reading and understanding assigned material in order to participate in class discussions anticipates that students in this class are motivated to read and digest assignments in a timely fashion. Class discussion will assume that all participate and contribute to the instruction as well as take advantage of the learning opportunities. Writing assignments are in place to assist the student in both processing information and in developing skills for clearly expressing new ideas. Field assignments are designed to expose students to specific community development situations so that practical application of class discussions and readings is possible. Group projects will allow students the opportunity to integrate learning into practical solutions and into a context of competing community needs.

Required Texts:

• Escobar, Arturo (1995). Encountering Development. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press
• Isbister, John (2006). Promises not Kept. Bloomfield, CT: Kumarian
• Myers, Bryant L. (1999). Walking with the Poor. New York: Orbis
  

Course Outline:
Day	Topic	Objective	Assignment
1	Introduction	To introduce students to course; class objectives; Millennial Development Goals; and to receive greetings from officials	Document in journal the information you learn about objective and Millennial Development Goals
	Development Models	To explore the variety of models for conceptualizing development
	Readings		Isbister Ch 1-2; Escobar Ch 1; Myer Ch 1-2
2	Culture	To explore the basic concepts of culture and their importance for development	Document in your journal and come to class prepared to explain your current understanding of culture, how it is formed, how it is maintained, and how it impacts behavior
	Development Concepts	To present the basics concepts of development	Develop community research plan with team
3	Poverty	What is poverty; poverty’s association with development	Escobar Ch 2; Myer Ch 3 Document in your journals the new aspects of poverty that are emerging in your thinking
4		What is the response of a faithful person to poverty?	Get with two other participants and discuss the implications of faith and poverty; document in your journals how this discussion helps you move beyond mere understand to praxis
5		Poverty Reduction or poverty elimination?	Go on line and find information on the Millennium Development Goals
6		Economics	Escobar Ch 3; after reading develop at least a two paragraph defense of one of the economic models you encountered
7		Power	Escobar Ch 4
8		Models of Development	Isbister Ch 3; Myers Ch 4
9		Transformational Development	Myer Ch5 Over the weekend develop at least a one page journal entry on your theoretical frame of development
10	Assessment	Examining organizations and their role in development
11		Development options	Isbister Ch 6; Myers Ch 6-7 As a journal entry evaluate one of the MDGs, its likelihood for attainment and its compatibility with your Christian perspective
12		Introduce case method and writing cases
13		Preparing for the field	Finalize community assessment plan and note it in your journal
14		What will you see?	Escobar Ch 5 Journal entry: what do you expect to learn about development during your field experience?
15-22	Field Work	Conduct interviews and process data	Reflection Paper Due before student begins field work. Daily journal entries should address the research and learning processes that you experience.
23-24		Prepare Cases Presentations
25		Presentations	Class presentations

This syllabus is intended to facilitate the exchange of information between the instructor and student and in no way should be construed as legal document or commitment.