DEVG312 – Development Theory Course
Course content
This course is for students in the Master programme in Development Geography. The students taking this course go to the same classes as the students who attend the courses SGO4501 and SGO4502. For course description, see SGO4501 – Development (continued) and SGO4502 – Development Theory Course 2 (discontinued). In addition, the students of DEVG312 spend some time reading additional texts on one self-selected theme within development theory, for instance poverty, sustainable development, urbanization and shelter, environment, migration, politics.
Learning outcome
The objective of the course is to provide the students with a thorough theoretical understanding of global inequality and mass poverty. A major aim is the improvement of the students' ability to discuss and carefully present many different perspectives. Moreover, enabling the students to distinguish between mainstream and “smallstream” paradigms and their theoretical “roots” is a major goal. Further objectives are to take the pulse of contemporary development debates, identify central themes and analyse present-day positions in terms of the theoretical understanding. The aims are to enable the students to argue pro et con different positions in many debates, and be open to valid arguments in any paradigm.
Admission
Students who are admitted to study programmes at UiO must each semester register which courses and exams they wish to sign up for in Studentweb.
If you are not already enrolled as a student at UiO, please see our information about admission requirements and procedures.
Prerequisites
Formal prerequisite knowledge
Students are expected to have a Bachelor's degree in Human Geography.
Recommended previous knowledge
This course builds upon SGO2500 – North/South Development: Energy transitions and sustainability and SGO3400 – Utviklingsgeografi (discontinued), but these courses are not prerequisites.
Teaching
The teaching consists of lectures and seminars. All teaching will be given in English.
Examination
The assessment for SGO4501 is a 6 hour (previously unseen) written exam. The assessment for SGO4502 is a 6 hour (previously unseen) written exam. In addition, students must write a paper on one self-selected theme within development theory. The paper may be a maximum of 8 pages of main text (3300 words), and the title of the paper must be accepted by the course leader.
Any take home exam or essay etc. handed in at the University of Oslo may be checked for plagiarism by use of the Ephorus text recognition software.