Grading procedures

Grades will be given on a straight percentage:

See late assignment policy

Assignments

Important dates

Assignment descriptions

Analysis of development measures

… from the UNDP (United Nations Development Program) 2004 Human Development Report. Here are the tables you need to analyze (you'll have to open the pdf and scroll to find the tables:

• Tables 1 and 2, Human Development Index (HDI)

Choose two of the following six tables (pages 79 - 99 in the Adobe file):

• Table 24, Gender related development index (and GDI, Gender Development Index) rank
• Table 25, Gender empowerment measure (GEM)
• Table 26, Gender inequality in education
• Table 27, Gender inequality in economic activity
• Table 28, Gender, work burden, and time allocation
• Table 29, Women's political participation
  

You may find the technical notes to the report helpful in understanding how these measures were devised.

You'll should analyze these tables. Take the HDI table, and one of the two gender-based measures, and use 1-2 pages for each (no more than 5 pages double-spaced overall), and describe what the statistics tell you about development, or about the status of women. I would expect for each you'd provide:

1. a brief 1-2 sentence summary of what the table is measuring;
2. description and analysis of what you learned from the table (e.g., about gender differences on development measures, the usefulness of the measure, the possible difficulties of collecting reliable data for this measure, possible alternative measures that might better represent gender differences, maybe a better idea of where extreme gender differences exist in the world, or merely a better understanding of global inequalities by country, by continent, government type, etc.).

I'd also like to see a brief ending paragraph about what this assignment has taught you that is relevant to course material and the problem of gender bias (I'll be looking to see how much thought you gave this one).
I would recommend you find someone in class to proofread anything you turn in, including this assignment. I would hope that from this assignment you gain:

1. a better feel for the geography of gender differences and global inequalities (with respect to development);
2. a grasp of the concepts underlying gender and development measurement (e.g., what are the important things that will tell us if people's / women's lives are improving or not?);
3. a better understanding of the difficulties in trying to quantify and measure gender bias and more generally development;
4. an appreciation of the importance of measurement in trying to assess whether development is taking place-what is measured, how is it measured, does the measure actually do what it says it does? Maybe even what isn't measured and why;
   

This assignment is worth 10% of your overall grade (50 pts).

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Midterm exam

There will be two exams in this class, a midterm and a final. The midterm is scheduled for Monday and Tuesday of Week 6 (May 2 - 3). On the mid-term exam, you have the option of taking the test individually on Monday, and re-taking the test the next day in a small group, where you will be able to discuss your answers before turning in one exam for the group (still closed book, though).

The individual portion of the exam will be worth 75% of your grade on the test, and the group portion 25%. If you prefer, you can take the test again individually, or if you feel you did well, choose not to take it again and settle for whatever grade you end up with. If your group scores lower on the re-test than you as an individual did the previous day, I will not lower your grade (i.e., I'll give you 100% of the points based on your individual score). The point of this exercise is to, hopefully, turn the test into a learning exercise as well as an evaluation tool.

The final will be over the material in the second half of the course (i.e., won't be comprehensive).

Each exam is worth 100 points--40% of overall points combined.

Group term project

You'll be working in small groups (three or four per group), and asked to come up with a proposal. Essentially, you'll need to identify some problem, describe the problem, and explain how you propose to address it. There are a few sections to the paper that you'll need to include:

1. Identification of the problem (describe the problem, its scope, show why and how it's an important problem and worthy of attention, and finish with a problem statement)
2. What are you proposing? How will you address the problem you just described? This section should also include goals and objectives (why are you proposing this project, and what do you really want to accomplish?). Goals are usually broad statements, for instance improving women's nutrition in rural villages; objectives would lay out the ways in which you would do this-awareness/media campaign, vegetable gardening projects, etc. You should justify the choices you've made.
3. Methods/approach (What methods will you use to achieve your objectives? For instance, if you proposed a vegetable gardening project, you would have to determine how you would go about accomplishing this task-would you train villagers, send workers out into rural areas, dig wells, provide seeds, etc.? There are many issues to work out). Some things to consider include:
   
   
   • Key stakeholders (who are the important people who need to be involved-whether with government agencies, village chiefs, etc.)
   • Planning and participation (how will you involve the intended beneficiaries? Who will manage the project?
   • Scale (nationwide, region-wide, village-wide, working only with women, working with whole villages, certain ethnic groups-there are geographical questions, ethnic/religious/cultural questions, as well as the scope of work)
   • Time-what is the time frame for the project?
   • Evaluation-how will you know if the project was a success? What might be important measures?

   
   As part of this, I would like you to briefly describe two alternative methods that you decided not to use (or at least two others that could address the problem), and why your means of addressing the problem is the best choice.

4. Resource implications-this is the nuts and bolts. Do you need vehicles? Paper? Printers? How much staff? Medical supplies? Buildings? Are these available locally, or will they have to be imported, etc.
5. Impacts/potential barriers-well-designed projects think through how they might impact different groups of people, and what the barriers to their success might be. You're expected to engage in some informed speculation on these.
6. Design principles-some of the important principles of development we'll discuss in class include grassroots participation (bottom-up vs top-down), collective action, flexibility, sustainability, leverage, scale, using local resources (increasing self-reliance) and transformatory potential. You'll want to discuss which of these, if any, you've incorporated into your project, and how.

Total 150 points:

• 10 points possible for turning in a topic and justification by end of week 6;
• 15 points possible for turning in a draft at beginning of week 9;
• 50 points for class presentation;
• 75 points for final group paper. It should be double-spaced, between 10-12 pages in length.
  

Individual accountability

I would like an accounting of the hours put into the assignment. Let me know about meetings, who attended them, and how labor was divided. For each person assigned specific tasks, I'll be looking to see what you contributed to the overall discussion. In other words, if there's no evidence some of the group members contributed, that will be reflected in the individuals' grades.

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Friday small groups

This class, like many sociology classes, tends to present a welter of depressing information. We will on several occasions take what we're learning and discuss what can be done about it-in essence move from the problems to the development possibilities. This is also to help prepare you for the group term project to be undertaken during the second half of the class. On Fridays four times during the term, you will break into small groups and use readings and lecture material to respond to questions I'll provide.

You'll be graded on:

• Your understanding of the key issues discussed during the week
• Your ability to thoughtfully address development problems and come up with alternative proposals

This portion of the class is worth 100 points. 20 points for each week's discussion (total of 80). Discussion weeks will occur during weeks 2, 3, 4, and 8. 20 points will be given for attendance of group presentations during week 10 as part of your participation grade.