International Development and Social Change Major

Foundation Courses (6 courses/units)

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 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 6 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 courses/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  ), 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)

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 4+1 in Community Development and Planning, SSJ 344  serves as the Senior Capstone class.  Please see the IDSC Handbook on the IDSC Canvas site.

Honors Thesis (1 course unit)

One must apply through the Undergraduate Program Coordinator for the Honors Thesis Program.  Please refer to the IDSC Handbook on the IDSC Canvas site. Those wishing to graduate with honors register for ID 297 with a thesis supervisor in the second semester of senior year. The class ID 297 serves as the Senior Capstone Seminar.

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

Honors

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 January 31 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
• In March of the Spring semester, the honors thesis student will have a workshop with their thesis committee members. At this time, the student will provide a brief synopsis of the thesis and field thesis-related questions from committee members.  At the end of the workshop, the first reader or chair of the thesis committee will list out the revisions that the student must make before the April 15th submission deadline.  A thesis workshop normally lasts one hour.  Honor thesis students should check with the first reader or chair of the thesis committee to see if they may invite friends and family to be present at the workshop.
• Presentation of the thesis as either a poster or as an oral presentation at ClarkFEST in the Spring semester

The IDSC Undergraduate Coordinator oversees the Honors program. The Coordinator evaluates the Honors Thesis proposal, coordinates procedures, and serves as a resource for students pursuing an Honors Thesis.

The Double Major

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

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.

Study Abroad

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/.