Social Impact and International Development

Catalog description

This class will offer students a grounding in and overview of the field of international development and practice. We will explore the evolution of goals, models, and assessment of development across history. We will explore the key debates in economic, political, and human development, the challenges of responsible intervention. Students will be challenged to explore impact creation in resource-constrained settings, especially outside of one’s home community. We will study ways to adapt solutions as a way of generating ideas and social entrepreneurship as a development model including challenges of participation, deliverability and distribution, revenue generation, uncertainty, and risk. Students will produce written and verbal reflections on the tensions of working in a developing context; insider-outsider identities and tradeoffs; and ethics, tensions, and opportunities of working in and out of one’s home community.