Grading procedures

Grades will be given on a straight percentage:

See late assignment policy

Assignments

Important dates

Assignment descriptions

Midterm exam

The midterm exam will take place Monday and Tuesday, May 7-8. On Monday, you will take the test as you normally would. On Wednesday, you have the option of re-taking the test in a small group, where group members can discuss your answers before turning in one exam for the group (still closed book, though).

The individual portion of the exam (Monday’s test) will be worth 75% of your total grade for the test, and the group portion 25%. If you prefer, you can take the test again on Wednesday by yourself, or choose not take it again and settle for whatever grade you end up with from Monday’s test (sorry, I won’t have them graded …). If your group on the second day scores lower 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 Monday, individual score). The point of this exercise is to, hopefully, turn the test into a learning exercise as well as an evaluation tool.

Worth 100 points.

Analysis of development measures – Due April 30

… from the UNDP (United Nations Development Programme), 2011 Human Development Report. You need to analyze the following tables:

Part I

• Table 1, Human Development Index—Resources and FAQ on this page
• Table 4, Gender Inequality Index—Resources and FAQ on this page

Part 2

• Create and analyze a table using the resources at Gapminder.org.

Guidance on Part 1:

So, you’re to analyze two tables from the HDR: the HDI (Human Development Index) table, and the Gender Inequality Index table. For each three table, I would like a 1-2-page analysis of what you learned/observed. Describe what the statistics tell you about development, or about the status of women. I would expect for each you'd provide:

• a brief 1-2 sentence summary of what the table is trying to measure;
• 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.). But remember—use ‘developed’ countries for comparison, but they shouldnot be the focus of your paper. Also make sure you describe how any indices were calculated (you should understand the difference between an index and an indicator or measure).
• a critique of the measures used—do they actually measure what they claim to? Are there other better measures available? How difficult might it be to collect data? Are there missing data that render the measures less meaningful?

Make sure you check out the supporting materials on the pages linked above—they will help immeasurably in understanding these measures and how they are used.

This assignment is in part about ‘statistical literacy’—can you take statistics, in this case in table form, understand and make sense of them, and identify what is important about them? These tables include both direct measures and indices (an index is a compilation of measures).

I'd also like to see a brief ending paragraph reflecting on the use of statistics in development—you can be critical, analytical, etc., but I’m looking for thoughtfulness. Do the existing measures we use tell us what we need to know? If not, why do we use them?

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:

• a better feel for the geography of gender differences and global inequalities;
• 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?);
• a better understanding of the complexities in trying to quantify and measure gender bias and more generally development;
• 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 claims to do?

As you go through these , think about possible alternative measures. For instance, ‘health/well-being’ might be measured as number of doctors per 100,000 residents (regardless of where they’re located), or as life expectancy, as infant mortality, as total daily caloric intake, etc—all yielding different kinds of data and different conclusions. Keep in mind, that measurement costs money—data have to be collected, compiled, analyzed, etc. Where does the information come from? An interview with illiterate villagers (that is, who won’t be filling out surveys)? An official report? How hard is it to collect? Would possible better measures be harder to collect?

Look through these indicators for some guidance if it helps.

Guidance on Part 2:

We will discuss this in class. This part of the assignment will be evaluated based on the thoughtfulness and creativity of your choices, and your ability to demonstrate that you grasp the significance of the measures (including the dimension of time—these graphs show changes over time). You will want to link to the table you create (put the URL in the paper so that I can view it, too).

The final report should be double-spaced, no longer than 6 pages in length. The final version worth 100 points—70 pts for Part 1, 30 pts for Part 2.

This assignment is worth 22% of total (100 pts).

Term project

You'll be asked to come up with a proposal. You can choose to do this with a partner, or individually. 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 (and feel free to use these as headings to organize the paper. Really!):

• 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)
• Proposal. 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.
• 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, many ways to approach a problem. Some important considerations include:

• Key stakeholders. W ho 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.

• 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.
• 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.
• 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, keeping in mind that adding each of these, if you can do it in thoughtful ways, increases the likelihood of your project’s sustainability.

Point breakdown

• 20 points possible for turning in a topic and justification by end of week 6;
• 30 points possible for turning in a draft Tuesday of week 9;
• 40 points possible for a short presentation of the proposal (either end of wk 10 or Thursday of wk 11)
• 100 points for final proposal. It should be double-spaced, no less than 10, no more than 13 pages.
• 190 points possible for the project (33% of overall grade)

Small group discussion

Two Fridays during the term, April 27 and May 18, you will respond to questions I give you in class in small groups. I'll assign a set of short readings, usually these are topical issues so I have yet to decide what to go with, and you need to do the readings, write up a brief summary and analysis--no more than a page in length--that demonstrates you not only did the readings but got something of value out of them. Bring this 'abstract' as I call it to class, and then the groups answer the questions. The abstract is worth 5 points, the group responses 20 points.

50 total points possible, 25 for each discussion day