International Educational Development in Practice: Tools, Techniques and Ethics

Catalog description

This course covers the broad arena of international educational development practice by introducing students to a variety of tools used in international educational development work. It is a required course for IEDP Masters students and is offered in the Fall semester only. Coursework is built around the project cycle and will acquaint you with current approaches to development and accompanying tools employed by a variety of international development organizations. Specifically, you will gain skills to determine how to gather adequate information, interpret information and put this information into clear and helpful frameworks for formulating recommendations for action. To learn these skills, you will work in small groups on a technical proposal throughout the semester. Throughout the semester, we will seek a more nuanced understanding of the general context and the role of institutions in global development work, while being aware of local realities and ethical issues that make development as contested locally as it is at national and global levels. Development from this perspective is not primarily a technical enterprise, although it does require skill with "techniques'. Rather it involves a process of heralding the best available information to facilitate the mobilization of resources and people to engender development - a development process whose focus is broadening people's capacities, opportunities, choices, and access to social justice.