This module explores the causes of climate change, its impacts on development and the role of adaptation in reducing vulnerability to climate change and promoting climate resilient development. The first part of the module covers key aspects of climate change science necessary for an essential understanding of the causes and expected future impacts of climate change. The second part of the module focuses on the theory and practice of adaptation to climate change at different scales, from national policy making to local level case studies. A programme of lectures, workshops and group and individual work allow students to explore the module material.
This module aims to support students in preparing the skills and knowledge required to undertake research with children, young people and families. It will support students in developing a critical understanding of the practical, ethical and theoretical issues that can be involved in undertaking research in this area. We are a small group of academics with experience of teaching and supervision at undergraduate and postgraduate level, with expertise in educational theory and practice. We offer a broad spectrum provision that provides a needs-based and timely approach to the educational development of all who teach Imperial students. This module develops an advanced understanding of some of the challenges and changes in aid delivery that are introduced in Critical Issues in Development Practice 1, in the autumn semesters.
It also guides students to critically analyse policy choices within specific contexts. Climate change presents a challenge to development that is both complex and urgent. Populations in less developed countries are amongst the most vulnerable to the impacts of climate change. A multi-disciplinary approach allows us to understand the causes, consequences and responses to climate change in the 21st century.
Developers Training
Together these modules serve as the core foundations for the MA in Development Practice (DP). With the grounding the previous module provides, Critical Issues in Development Practice 2 will expand your understanding to new different areas of concern and practice, across a wide range of approaches and topics in contemporary aid delivery.
Adult & Developmental Education
An abiding concern is understanding impacts for the poor and vulnerable, particularly smallholder farmers, but also consumers in the North and South, and those involved in value chains. The module will help students develop a critical and inter-disciplinary understanding of key international policy debates that have relevance to agriculture. The aim of this module is to help you understand and critically examine, policy-making processes and specific policies for educational development. You will discover the relationships between policy and practice in a range of international, national and local development contexts. Through this module you will explore different approaches to policy development and familiarise yourself with dominant global policy agendas in education — asking who makes or influences policy, and considering policies as socially situated documents, practices and processes.
The course consists of weekly workshops and seminar sessions, which include videos and discussions oriented around core issues and readings. Poverty and hunger remain key developmental challenges, driving poor health and ill-being on the one hand and conflict and violence on the other. In this module, you will explore different approaches to understanding rural livelihoods. You will be equipped with the dev education tools and frameworks to critically assess different strategies for livelihoods-building and their implications for poverty and inequality, including those of class and gender, at the micro-level. Starting with an understanding of key concepts of poverty, food security, gender, capabilities, capitals and entitlements, you will apply these to a host of contexts and programmes through seminar discussions.
Food security is a central theme; we explore different ways food security is defined and how it is contested internationally, considering global institutions like FAO, interest groups, and diverse policy agendas (e.g. food sufficiency, nutrition, sustainability). Students will gain critical understanding of debates around these issues and of how different policy actors engage with them. These actors include firms, public RandD institutions, farmers’ movements, and major donors and philanthropic organisations.
A complementary strand of the module will examine shifting parameters of aid delivery, including around businesses and private sector involvement, for example in how public private partnerships might operate for the sustainable development goals. Examining such approaches includes considering the potential conceptual contradictions underlying social or human development objectives and business motives, and ways forward, such as looking at business ethics, corporate social responsibility, and social enterprise. dev education The overall goal is to give you a deep and broad understanding of the key issues driving change in the sector for coming decades. Starting with the concept of literacy as a social practice, we draw on ethnographic research to unpack the relationship between literacy and international development. We will discuss current theories in adult learning and their relevance for policy, planning and practice in lifelong learning, as well as including an introduction to key debates and approaches in development theory.
- This module aims to develop student’s systematic understanding of the issues of social inclusion, equality and diversity within the social and moral fabric of the lives of children, young people and families today.
- The aim of this module is to understand how forces operating at the global scale affect food and agriculture.
- Students will gain critical understanding of debates around these issues and of how different policy actors engage with them.
- It endeavours to allow students to examine the nature of inclusion and anti-oppressive practice to develop a critical thinking around key issues such as class, ethnicity and race, gender and sexuality, disability and Special Educational Needs.
You would take this module in the summer semester as an alternative to the Dissertation module, and it is open to most MA /MSc programmes. The placements are for a period of 8-10 weeks between May and, preferably, the end of July. In recent years, students have done placements across a range of United Nations institutions, in specialist consultancy and research Organisations, and non-governmental organisations https://kharkiv.deveducation.com/ua/ both in the UK and across the world. Whilst we cannot guarantee a placement we are confident that most students who take this module and apply themselves to identifying an internship, will be successful. The module is assessed by the production of an Analytical Report based on the internship which allows you to reflect both on the content of the placement, and the personal expense of undertaking this work.
This module gives you sufficient grasp of the scientific underpinnings of climate change science to engage confidently in debate with non-specialists on the causes and consequences of climate change. It also gives you the theoretical and applied knowledge to research and plan for adaptation to climate change. Effective social development and policy are based on sound conceptual foundations, and this module focuses on the conceptual tools that underpin policy relevant social analysis. You will develop skills to analyse social contexts which influence interventions and social change (‘development’), using concepts from sociology, anthropology and political analysis. There is an old development adage that ‘if you give a man a fish you feed him for a day, but if you give him a fishing rod you feed him for a lifetime’.
This module provides you with an introduction to the theory and practice of impact evaluation. The focus will be on issues around evidence-based policy making, approaches to wellbeing, and their practical application in terms of evaluating the effect of development interventions on the quality of people’s lives. The first part discusses the notion of evidence-based policy, introduces the students to the area of evaluation and reviews the role of programme theory in evaluation. The second part addresses the theory of welfare, with particular reference to poverty, inequality, and multi-dimensional ill-being as well as cost effectiveness.
The module is about social concepts and theory, but we always apply these concepts to practical social development issues and interventions. This module https://deveducation.com/ gives you an opportunity to identify, apply for and do an internship or work placement, worth 60 credits, as an integral part of your Masters programme.
The third part considers policy and evaluation in practice looking at a range of sectors and contexts. This module provides an interdisciplinary introduction to the analysis and understanding of issues of environmental change, and of the relationships between environment and development. Students will have a critical understanding of social constructions of cause and effect relationships in environment and development issues, including a critical understanding of scientific assessments. They will be able to link these understandings to topics encountered in other courses, and to develop their own perspectives on environment and development issues. In particular they should understand the somewhat different perspectives in ‘less developed countries’ on environment and development issues.
This will enable a deeper understanding of the interconnections between the wider policy context, the social structure that shapes entitlements, the assets available to groups and individuals and their livelihood strategies. You will also explore the links between the rural and urban, and the changes over time.
This module aims to develop student’s systematic understanding of the issues of social inclusion, equality and diversity within the social and moral fabric of the lives of children, young people and families today. It endeavours to allow students to examine the nature of inclusion and anti-oppressive practice to develop a critical thinking around key issues such as class, ethnicity and race, gender and sexuality, disability and Special Educational Needs. The aim of this module is to understand how forces operating at the global scale affect food and agriculture. These forces include trends in farming and trade, environmental change, policy developments, and social movements.
Around three-quarters of the world’s poor live in rural areas and within most developing countries the gap between the rural poor and better off urban residents continues to widen. https://itstep.org/ The lives of the rural poor can be greatly influenced by policies in areas such as agriculture, land, social protection, natural resources, health, education and trade.
Themes explored will include specific approaches to aid delivery, such as human rights based approaches to development, and how this intersects with concerns around good governance as a key pillar for development. You will also be exposed to debates about global aid architecture and institutions, and wider global conditions in which aid operates, including around the politicisation of aid and the implications of the ‘securitisation’ agenda.