International Development and Social Change Major

Foundation Courses (6 courses/units)

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1. ID 125 - International Development and its Alternatives: Theory, Practice, Action  

2. ECON 010 - Economics and the World Economy  

3. Culture, Race, Difference (choose one from the following 3 courses):

• ID 121 - Culture, Health, and Development: What Makes Us Sick?  
• PECO 101 - Introduction to Peace Studies  
• ID 227 - Ideologies of Race in Development  

4. Research Methods (choose either ID 132  or GEOG 141  )

5. Political Economy of Development (choose one from the following 6 courses):

• GEOG 127 - Political Economy of Development  
• GEOG 274 - Africa’s Development in Global Context  
• ID 212 - Development Management in Developing Countries: Concepts, Contexts, and Problems  
• ID 217 - Gig Cities: Work and Inequality  
• ID 221 - Food Systems: Place, Politics and Policy  
• ID 222 - The Political Economy of Food and the Ethics of Eating  
• PSCI 173 - Latin-American Politics  

6. Environment and Development (choose one from the following 7 courses)

• EN 101 - Environmental Science and Policy: Introductory Case Studies  
• EN 217 - Place-Based Ecological Knowledge  
• EN 242 - Sustainable Development Assessment and Planning  
• EN 228 - Food Security and Climate Change  
• GEOG 017 - Environment and Society  
• GEOG 118 - Environment and Development in the Global South  

The foundational methods class, ID 132 - Methods of Inquiry: Applied interdisciplinary approaches for social change , is usually offered during the fall semester. This course will prepare you for independent research during study abroad, your capstone seminar project, or your honors thesis. Hence, students are strongly encouraged to take ID 132  before beginning these endeavors (at the start of the second year)

Note: ID 132  does not fulfill the Formal Analysis (FA) requirement.

 

Community Engagement and Practice (2 credit units)

 

1. ID 298   (Internship) or ID 299  (Research, primary or field-based research preferred)
2. One of the following types of courses (one credit unit):

• Any Problems of Practice (POP) course, or
• A language class at the intermediate level, or
• A GIS course (either GEOG 190  or GEOG 282 ) (GEOG 294 not found), or
• A quantitative method or statistics course (GEOG 110  , SOC 202  , or ECON 160  )

IDSC program faculty do encourage students to consider advanced language learning to enhance their cultural competencies and their competitiveness on the job market.

Area of Specialization (4 courses/units)

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IDSC majors take at least four elective courses in an area of specialization (3 electives and 1 capstone seminar).

Students may follow well-established specializations that relate to international development and social change (e.g., Political Economy, Peace and Conflict, Gender, Environment & Sustainability, Education, Global and Community Health, Refugees, Forced Migration and Belonging) or they may design their own area of specialization with the approval of their IDSC advisor.

Three elective courses in an area of specialization (created with your ID advisor):

1. One of these 3 courses may be a non-ID course at the 100 or 200 level
2. Two of these 3 courses must be ID courses at the 100 or 200-level course

One capstone seminar (this seminar must be 200-level ID course that you take in either the first or second semester of your Senior Year)

To help students, capstone eligible seminars are noted as such at the time of course registration.

• If you are pursuing the ADP in Community Development and Planning, SSJ 344  serves as the Senior Capstone class.  Please see the IDSC Handbook.

Honors Thesis (1 course unit)

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One must apply through the Undergraduate Program Coordinator for the Honors Thesis Program.  Please refer to the IDSC Handbook. Those wishing to graduate with honors register for ID 297 with a thesis supervisor in the second semester of senior year.

*IDSC majors must earn at least a C- in core and required courses to count toward the major.

Honors

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To graduate with Honors in the major, a student must complete an original Honors Thesis on a topic of relevance to the field of international development and social change.

Eligibility and Application Process

Majors who have maintained at least a 3.5 grade point average in IDSC major courses and a 3.25 overall grade point average (GPA) are eligible to apply for an Honors Thesis. Admission to the Honors Thesis program does not automatically guarantee the awarding of Honors. Students must first satisfy a number of requirements:

• Identification of a faculty supervisor by March 1 of the junior year
• Application to the IDSC Honors Committee in April in the junior year
• Two page update on thesis progress due on October 1.
• Presentation of a chapter and detailed outline of the entire thesis to the thesis supervisor at the end of fall semester of senior year
• Completion of the thesis during the spring semester of the senior year, with the approval of the thesis supervisor
• Oral workshop of the completed thesis before the first and second (of which one must a core IDSC faculty member) in March of the Spring semester.
• Presentation of the thesis at ClarkFEST in the Spring semester

The IDSC Undergraduate Coordinator and the ID Accelerated BA/MA Coordinator oversee the Honors program in consultation with the IDSC program faculty. Their roles are to evaluate applications to the program, coordinate procedures, and serve as a source of information to students and faculty participating in the program.

For further information on procedures and dates, please see the IDSC undergraduate handbook on the Major’s Canvas site or contact the IDSC Undergraduate Program Coordinator.

The Double Major

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Many students double major or major in IDSC and minor in related departments, such as Economics, Geography, Political Science, (especially international relations or comparative politics), Sociology, and Women’s Studies. Up to two courses can be counted toward both majors.

International Development and Social Change Internships

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Internships provide an opportunity to gain insight and experience in development through work in government or nonprofit agencies. Recently, students have had overseas internships with the Grameen Bank in Bangladesh, the American Jewish World Service in El Salvador, the London Internship Program, and the World Health Organization in Geneva. Other interns have worked in the United States on national and international development issues with the Environmental Defense Fund, Grassroots International, Oxfam America, Habitat for Humanity, MassPIRG, Save the Children, Aid to Artisans, and Girls, Inc.

All International Development majors must undertake an internship for academic credit. Internships for credit must be supervised or sponsored by core ID faculty or affiliate SSJ faculty with the approval of your faculty advisor. You should register for ID 299 the semester during the internship to receive credit. If your internship is during the summer, you should register through the School of Professional Studies.

Study Abroad

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Many international development students have learned about development issues first-hand through Study Abroad programs, such as those in Namibia, Vietnam, Thailand, Morocco, Costa Rica, Argentina, and the Dominican Republic. Students have also studied abroad on related programs at the London School of Economics, Seville, Spain and Italy.  Please contact the Study Abroad office at Clark for information on study-abroad options. You should discuss your study-abroad plans in advance with your major adviser to maximize your learning experience. For more information, visit www.clarku.edu/offices/studyabroad/.