Systems Thinking for International Development and Educational Change

Catalog description

This course explores what it means to take a "systems approach" to understanding international development, particularly as it relates to the design and implementation of projects supported at least in part by international aid and donor institutions. We focus overall on the education sector, but we begin with a broader view of complex adaptive systems and international development, drawing upon case studies about education, water, sanitation, health, savings groups, empowering the disabled, climate change and community radio, and others. There is ample room for the course to appeal to those focused on sectors other than education. We build upon a deep discussion of the complexity of development contexts. Next, we turn to systems thinking and "theories of change." We ultimately go deepest into educational processes, politics, systems and outcomes. Concerns for governance and accountability have increased attention to "systems thinking" in the design and implementation of public services, including education plans and educational reform; therefore, reformers must grasp the range of meanings of an "education system" as complex, multidimensional processes, interactions, and institutional structures. Students will learn to use systems thinking to approach, define, understand and analyze the biggest challenges to improving social outcomes--so called "wicked problems".