SO 191 Course Syllabus

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Please take this survey about your perceptions of Global Issues

So 191 Class Results of the Global Issues Survey:

• Global Issues Survey Results for Fall 2001 Class: Frequency Tables for 2001
• Global Issues Survey Results for Fall 2002 CLASS:  Frequency Tables for 2002
  
• Global Issues Survey Results for Fall 2003 CLASS:  Frequency Tables for 2003
  
• Global Issues Survey Results for Fall 2005 CLASS:  Frequency Tables for 2005
• Global Issues Survey Results for Fall 2007 CLASS:  Frequency Tables for 2007

What is happening in Southern societies today? What will happen tomorrow? Are they undergoing a "development" process similar to that experienced by the United States and Europe? Are they sailing through uncharted waters? Will their "story" have a happy ending or are there major disasters looming? Is there one story or many? These are the kind of questions that we hope to answer in this course. When reading or viewing a news story about the South our goal is for you to find yourself "filling in" the background of the story and having clear ideas as to how that story might develop in the future. Two course texts will be supplemented by a variety of contemporary readings  from a book of readings (ANNUAL EDITIONS, Global Issues 07/08, 23rd Edition).

Since "social changes" are actually real events occurring at particular times and places, our approach will be specific:  You will study a particular country in depth. Since we are living in a post Cold War world in which global forces (market and institutional) shape the plans and destinies of every country, we will study the nature of these forces.   The work by Barbara P. Thomas-Slayter, Southern Exposure: International Development and the Global South in the Twenty-First Century, offers an accessible description of the current state of the world.  Barry Hughes has developed a computer simulation of global systems that you will use to study various dimensions of social change in your country:  demographic, economic, food, energy, the environment, and international politics. This model is any ideal way to examine the human dimensions of global change; it also contains a very extensive array of country specific historical data from a wide variety of sources.  You can download this computer model, International Futures, and load it on your own computer.  We will be using Version 5.37 (May 2007) on the computers in our classroom, so this is the version you should load onto your computer.  This is a very sophisticated simulation model so the more you "play" with it the easier time you will have exploring it in the classroom.   We will be reading the companion work, Exploring and Shaping International Futures by Barry Hughes and Evan Hillebrand, which describes in detail how to use this model and a "base case" set of predictions about how social changes will evolve over the 21st century.

Basic Texts

ANNUAL EDITIONS  Global Issues 07/08, 23rd Edition edited  by Robert M. Jackson
Southern Exposure by  Barbara P. Thomas-Slayter
Exploring and Shaping International Futures by Barry Hughes and Evan Hillebrand

Grading:
 

Class Format:

Class Home Page:

Readings Pages

IF Exercises:

Policy on the submission of IF Exercises:

1. exercises will be collected at the beginning of the class when they are due.   You, of course, can hand exercises in earlier than that as well.
2. an exercise handed in after the beginning of class on its due date will be reduced a letter grade when evaluated.
3. an exercise will not be accepted if more than a week late, and will be evaluated as an "F."

 

Exercise #1  or Exercise #1 Web Version   (see example)  Link to IF on the web

Exercise #2  -- 

Helpful hints on population analysis

Exercise #3 

Exercise #4

Exercise #5

Exercise #6
       A great site that you can use to dynamically illustrate Exercise 6 is --  Gapminder.org  --  just "check" your country and hit "play."  This will produce a dynamic graph of how GNI per capital has been related to life expectancy over the past 20 to 30 years.  You can change the variable on the "y" axis to "child mortality" and "% of adult women using contraceptives" to see these variables as well as "life expectancy."  Can you see how great advances in "individual life conditions" can be achieved at relatively modest GDP per capita levels.  
One more site to look at is the "One Laptop Per Child" (OLPC) site describing the MIT project to put laptop in the hands of each child in developing countries.  (I mentioned this project last week.)

Exercise #7

Team Presentations:

• Question about the central theme of the author(s).
• Questions that arise from the text about the themes of the course.
• Questions about the organization of the text.
• Questions about apparent contradictions or problems with the author's argument.

Questions on Readings:

• September 11th Readings
• September 18th Readings
• September 25th Readings
• October 2nd  Readings
• October 16th Readings
• October 23rd Readings
• October 30th Readings
• November 6th Readings
• November 13th Readings
• November 20th Readings
• November 27th Readings
• December 4th Readings

Country Project:  You will need a USB drive ("thumb drive") for this project  

There will be five basic parts to each country study, although you will have great flexibility which respect to how you will to present this material.

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PART 1: History & Geography
Do some background research on your country and write a brief  profile of relevant geographical, historical, and political information.    Try to keep this country profile brief, but include the historical highlight of the last fifty years.  Include a political and/or physical map of each country.  The focus of the profile should be on the last fifty years.   See the on-line "helpful hints for research project" for more specific information on how best to treat this topic.

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PART 2:  Internal Inequality
Analyze the class system of your country as it existed in the recent past and today.  Who were the holders of power, wealth and prestige?  What were the other major classes?  Are there racial, tribal, language or religious divisions in your country that affect individuals' class positions?   Has there been a "revolution" in your country? Has the development effort in your country been influenced by its class system?  See the on-line "helpful hints for research project" for more specific information on how best to treat this topic.

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PART 3:  Social Changes
Collect as many "objective" measures of changes in the living conditions of your country as you can:  health and welfare measures,  education measures, demographic/family measures, gender relations measures, and the like. See if there has been change in these conditions during this half century.  See if you can determine how and why change has occurred. What role has the government played in bring about change?   Compare your country's changes with those of the region.  See the on-line "helpful hints for research project" for more specific information on how best to treat this topic.

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PART 4:  Economic Changes
Collect as much objective information about economic changes in your country as you can.  What economic development strategy has your country followed?  Has it been successful?  What have the economic growth trends been over the past 30 years; over the past 10 years?  Compare your country's changes with those of the region.  How has your country's economy been integrated into the global economy?  Has it benefited from such integration?  See the on-line "helpful hints for research project" for more specific information on how best to treat this topic.

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PART 5:  Prospects
The concluding section will be your assessment of the prospects for your country. Try to integrate the conclusions you reached in Parts I - IV into an overall assessment of your country's prospects. Will you country's past history constrain development? Will internal conditions (class, ethnic, racial divisions) constrain development?  Will resource limitations, demographic factors, political or economic factors constrain development? Are you optimistic or pessimistic about your country's prospects? Why?  See the on-line "helpful hints for research project" for more specific information on how best to treat this topic.

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Helpful Hints for Research Project

Table of Contents:  Helpful Hints for Doing Parts of a Country Study:

Part 1
Part 2
Part 3
Part 4
Part 5
Tips for working on your web page

Some helpful advice on producing great IFs charts for your country study:

Helpful Hints for Doing Part 1

Go to Table of Contents

Helpful Hints for Doing Part 2

Part 2 is all about internal class divisions in your country.   Who has the power/wealth/income?  Some information might be quite useful:

Finding out whether or not there are  racial, tribal, language or religious divisions in your country that affect individuals' class positions might require some digging on your part.  A good place to look for contemporary data is the State Department's Human Rights Report and the archive of past State Department's Human Rights Reports (archive).   They are submitted annually by the U.S. Department of State to the U.S. Congress. The reports cover internationally recognized individual, civil, political, and worker rights, as set forth in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. So when there are systematic acts of racial, tribal, religious, or language discrimination they get reported.

Also read the appropriate sections of your Country Study.  The section entitled "Social Sectors" discusses class groups.  There usually are also sections on "Ethnic Groups" and "Religion."   You can also check out AMNESTY INTERNATIONAL CAMPAIGNS, which contains information on a number of human rights campaigns undertaken by this human rights organization.

Go to Table of Contents
 
 

Helpful Hints for Doing Part 3

Think of Part 3 as a "Report Card"

You can construct your own groups of measures. Having done this you will now be able to assess in which areas your country has made significant progress and in which areas little improvement has been made. Remember, there are many different aspects to the "development" process. Countries might make significant strides in certain areas while not improving much in others. Looking at grouped measures will allow you to "grade" the performance of your country by area.

Practically, I would try to summarize your country's experience with each group of measures in a paragraph or two. For example, in one paragraph try to deal with "Measures of Health and Welfare." You can refer to charts and tables in this paragraph and it should conclude with a sentence in which you assess whether or not your country has made significant progress in improving its citizens' level of health and welfare. This section also should have a concluding paragraph that assesses the overall experience of social change your country -- a paragraph in which you clearly identify the areas where much or little progress has been made.

Go to Table of Contents

Helpful Hints for Doing Part 4

Do a special LEXIS-NEXIS Academic Universe  search.   Here is how to do a special Lexis-Nexis search for a current economic report on your country.  At the initial Lexis-Nexis screen choose the "Business" option.  At the "Business" screen, choose the "Business News" option.  In the box next to "Keyword" type this phrase: "country-name's economy" (for example:  "Iran's economy") -- do not forget to include the quote marks (") around this phrase.  You can leave the Date box set at six months since you want a recent report. You should get several good reports.  Recent articles in The Economist are very good.

WAYS TO GET WORLD BANK DATA

World Bank's "Regional Summaries" -- You can find the recent assessment of regional economic developments for Sub-Saharan Africa, South Asia, Europe and Central Asia, Latin America and Caribbean, and the Middle East and North Africa.  These short reviews will allow you to place a particular country's performance within a regional perspective. World Bank's Global Economic Prospects.

• The World Bank's "Country Overview"  --  Click on your country and then find the link to the "Country Overview" for your country.
• The World Bank's "Country Brief"  -- Search for the "Country Brief" for your country.
• The World Bank's "Country at a Glance Tables" -- Two pages of key indicators
• World Bank's "Data Page"  -- Provides access to information on a variety of topics contained in the tables of the World Development Report and well as other sources.

You actually have already collected much economic data in prior part of the projects -- see below:

Go to Table of Contents

Helpful Hints for Doing Part 5

• Part 1:  Will international relations (its position in the World System) constrain development?
• Part 2:  Will internal conditions (class, ethnic, racial divisions) constrain development?
• Part 3:  Will education, health, demographic or environments factors constrain development?
• Part 4:  Will economic factors constrain development?

Go to Table of Contents

Tips for constructing your web page country study

First Step in making a web page  --  answering this question:  What do you want to accomplish with your web page?

communicate with others?

provide access to general resources?

get visitors more engaged with your country material?

Second Step --  learning how to compose a web page:

1. Nvu (pronounced N-view)  --  this is a complete Web Authoring System for both Microsoft Windows and Macintosh users.  If you have an Mac, this is the html edited for you.   It is very similar to Composer in many ways but it is a more "up-to-date" program.  To learn about Nvu go to its web site:  http://www.nvu.com/index.php.  You can download a version  (be sure to download  the correct version for you computer) at this site: http://www.nvu.com/download.php.  You can find an on-line guide to the program here:  http://nvudev.com/guide/html.  I would recommend that you use Nvu as your html editor.
   
2. Netscape  --  the browser  --  comes with a very simple and free editor that's available on many university computers.  It is called Netscape Composer.  When you are in Netscape Navigator (the browser) you can open up Netscape Composer by either going to the "File Menu" and clicking on "Edit Page" or by clicking on the tiny icon of a pad and paper on the bottom right-hand side of the screen.  Clicking on the icon will open up a blank page.  Clicking on "Edit Page" will open up for editing the page you are currently visiting in the browser --  a handy thing if there is an image or map that you wish to "borrow" from the page you are visiting.  If you do not have Netscape on your office or home computer you can "download" a copy for free from the Netscape site.  The place to download Netscape Communicator 4.79  (the version that is on university computers) is:
   http://wp.netscape.com/download/0509102/10000-en-win32-4.79-base-128_qual.html

Things we will learn on our first "web" class:

• How to open up a blank page in Nvu or Composer and begin making a page
• Fonts  --   sizes, kinds, and colors
• Inserting  --  lines, images, links, and tables
• Formatting  --  using a "table" to get things where you want on a page
• Page Attributes  --  "naming" your page and giving it a background color
• NEVER USE SPACES  OR ODD CHARACTERS WHEN NAMING YOUR PAGE(s)!
• NEVER USE SPACES OR ODD CHARACTERS WHEN NAMING LINKS, IMAGES, OR FILES!
• using "targets" and constructing a table of contents
• Naming your first page "index.htm"
• Saving your page(s) and images on a floppy or zip disk
• Transferring your files to your own computer

Things we will learn on our second "web" class:

• Cutting and Pasting into your page  --  inserting material you already have in other files
• Converting Microsoft Word and Excel documents into html documents
• "Editing" pages you are browsing and saving them as pages for later use
• *using symbols (arrows, etc.) to link to pages  --  see below
• making an image into a link
• organizing your pages in subdirectories
• **relative and absolute links  -- the advantages of relative links.  See below
• working in the right "screen resolution" so that your pages look good on everybody's computer
• using "screen capture" software to make an image of a screen or part of a screen for use on your web page.
• developing multiple pages with relative links

 

*Useful Symbols for Your Web Page

• Just "right click" on the symbol that you want and "Save Image As" to your disk.
• Then, in your html editor, insert the image on your page where you want it.
• Finally, "right click" on the symbol, go to "Image Properties," choose the "Link" tab, and enter the htm "page" that you want to go to when that symbol is clicked.

Right Arrow (or "next page": 

"Table of Contents":

Next:

Previous: 

Exit: 

When you make a "link" to a page of your own, you can do it in two ways.  You can give that page's "absolute" address or its "relative" address.  The absolute address would be the address someone would have to write to get to that page from, say, their computer at home or in a dorm room.  The "relative" address is where that page can be found on the faculty server relative to the page where the link is being made.

Here is an example  --  I have a page that is a syllabus for my So 191 course on Social Change in Developing Countries.  Its address is:
http://www.faculty.fairfield.edu/faculty/hodgson/Courses/so191/SO191SYL.htm.
On the syllabus I have a link to a page giving students "Helpful Hints" on doing their research project.  Students can get this Helpful Hints page at this "absolute" address:
http://www.faculty.fairfield.edu/faculty/hodgson/Courses/so191/So191hh.htm
When I make this link I could use this full, "absolute," address. When I hit the "Link" icon in Composer I could type this full "absolute" address:
http://www.faculty.fairfield.edu/faculty/hodgson/Courses/so191/So191hh.htm
I  could also make a link to this page with a "relative" address.  When I hit the "Link" icon in Composer I could simply type:
So191hh.htm
This would work because these two files are in the same directory on the faculty server.

What if the page I want to link to is in a subdirectory below the directory where the So 191 syllabus file is found?
On the So 191 syllabus I have a link to a reading, "Life Is Unfair: Inequality in the World," by Nancy Birdsall.  Students can get this reading at this "absolute" address:
http://www.faculty.fairfield.edu/faculty/hodgson/Courses/so191/GlobalIssues/LifeIsUnfair.html
It's found in a subdirectory -- "GlobalIssues"  -- that contains the full text of certain readings.
When I make this link I could use this page's full, "absolute," address:
http://www.faculty.fairfield.edu/faculty/hodgson/Courses/so191/GlobalIssues/LifeIsUnfair.html
 I could also make a link to this page with this  "relative" address:
/GlobalIssues/LifeIsUnfair.html.
In this relative address I simply put the subdirectory and the name of the file..

In short, any file that resides in the same folder can be referred to by its name alone.   If a referenced file is in a subdirectory just include the name of the subdirectory before the actual file name. If the file resides one directory up in the structure, use the syntax ../LifeIsUnfair.html to indicate that file can be found one folder up (or ..//LifeIsUnfair.html if it's two folders up, and so on).  The number of "/" refers to the number of "up" jumps one has to make.

You should use relative addresses for your links.  Why --  because things change!  Computer and Network Services could change the name of the faculty server  -- like they did a year ago.    What if the faculty server changed from "www.faculty.fairfield.edu" to "www.facserver.fairfield.edu"?  If that happened then all your absolute links would be "wrong" and you would have to change each one.  If you use relative links then all your links still would be correct.

Warning to Web Page Authors:

Go to Table of Contents

 

Country Studies, 2007
(click on country name)

Country	Expert
Nigeria	Julia M.
Kenya	Jenna D.
Malawi	Emily M.
Mozambique	Chrissy M.
Sudan	Colleen M.
Phillipines	Tom S.
Vietnam	Caroline Q.
China	Olivia F.
Malaysia	Kelli R.
Nepal	Sean M.
Argentina	Jessica R.
Mexico	Andrew B.
Venezuela	Kristen C.
Ecuador	Rachael H.
Haiti	Kim B.
Syria	Michelle P.
Libya	Billy J.
Turkey	Amanda M.
Lebanon	Ashley C.
Iran	Mallarie E.

 

If you see a good article or data source for someone else's country -- please remember to tell them about it...

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     hodgson@mail.fairfield.edu