COMMUNITY ENGAGEMENT AND SUSTAINABLE HUMAN DEVELOPMENT:

A SERVICE-LEARNING COURSE

Contact hours: 45
Recommended credits: 3
Requirements: None

COURSE DESCRIPTION

Community Engagement and Sustainable Human Development is a course based on service learning as
a pedagogic methodology that prepares college graduates to be active and informed global citizens.

This is a credit bearing educational experience that provides students with the opportunity to participate
in community work complemented with reflection spaces that open the possibility of making the proper
connections with personal values and course contents: local development, social justice, intercultural
understanding, sustainability, global citizenship and civic responsibility. The community work takes
place in the context of local human development processes, mainly in urban Costa Rica.

LEARNING OUTCOMES

By the conclusion of this class, it is expected that the students acquire the following learning outcomes:
1. To understand the concept of sustainable human development
2. To identify and analyze structural inequalities that affect poverty, power, and exclusion.
3. To understand concepts behind community engagement.
4. To contextualize service-learning experiences with issues of local sustainable human
development.
5. To relate service activities to social justice, civic responsibility and global citizenship.
6. To analyze the cultural differences between home and host culture.
7. To generate a space to reflect on community work and its impact on the wellbeing of the
people.

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CONTENTS

UNIT 1. How to conceptualize Sustainable Human Development?

1.1. The concept of Sustainable Human Development.

1.2. Development and Human Needs.
1.3. Needs & Satisfiers.
1.4. Introduction to the Millennium Goals.

Readings: - Development and Human Needs, Max-Neef.

- Growth and Development: Critique of a Credo, Daly.
- Reflections on Human Development, Mahbub Ul Haq.

UNIT 2. Human Development: Measures and Criticism.

2.1. Differentiating development and economic growth: The endless dilemma.

2.2. Indexes to measure development: From HDI to GINI and more.
2.3. What is wrong with measuring development?: Main critiques.
2.4. Alternatives ways of measuring development.
2.5. Another view for Development: Comparative global maps.

Readings: - A Reassessment of the Human Development Index Via Data Envelopment Analysis, Despotis.
- Human Development Index : A Critique, Haider.
- Shaping Human Development: Which Way Next?, Sagar & Najam.
- Values Reflected in the Human Development Index, Lind.
- Data and Statistics from the indexes studied.

UNIT 3. Social Policies for Development: Local, National and Global Dimensions.

3.1. Traditional Development Approaches: Breaking the Paradigm.

3.3. Introduction of the policies.
3.4. Poverty, Inequality and Development.
3.5. The Millennium Goals: Objectives achieved.
3.6. Case Study: “Latin America: the most unequal region”.

Readings: - Social Policy for Development, Hall & Midgley (Chapters 1 & 2).
- The Millennium Development Goals: A Latin America and Caribbean Perspective, UNDP.
- Wilkinson, Richard and Kate Pickett (2010). Chapter 2: Poverty or inequality? & Chapter 3: How inequality gets
under the skin.
- Spirit Level: Why Equality is Better for Everyone. London: Penguin Books, pp. 15

- UNDP Executive Summary of the Regional Human Development Report for Latin America and the Caribbean
2010: Acting on the future: breaking the intergenerational transmission of inequality. New York: UNDP.
http://www.idhalc-actuarsobreelfuturo.org/site/engl/informe.php

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UNIT 4. Development Management

4.1. Development, Underdevelopment, Bad-Development and Post Development: A Transdisciplinary

Review.
4.2. Public-Private Partnerships.
4.3. Study Cases: United States and the Developed Countries, Latin America and the Developing
Countries.
4.4. Development and Environment.
4.5. Local Development.
4.6. Food Security.
4.7. Health Systems.

Readings: - Social Policy for Development, Hall & Midgley (Chapters 8 & 9).
- Degrowth, or deconstruction of the economy: Tow8ards a sustainable world, Leff.
- Development, Underdevelopment, Bad-Development and Post Development: A Transdisciplinary Review,
Unceta.
- Indigenous Development Alternatives, Nash.
- The Crisis Of Development: A Historical Critique From The Focal Point Of Human Well Being, Bhatt.

UNIT 5. Inclusive Development.

5.1. Defining Inclusive Development.

5.2. The dimensions of inclusive development.
5.3. Innovation and inclusive development.
5.4 The Millennium Goals: Remaining challenges.

Readings: Innovation in Informal Settings: A Research Agenda, Cozzens & Sutz.

- Sustainable Development Goals: The Post 2015 Agenda, UNDP.

METHODOLOGY
An ethnographic approach emphasizing all the opportunities for experiential learning will be used with the
students in order to gather information for analysis and interpretation.

Students will participate in follow-up sessions to analyze and share their experiences with their peers. These
sessions will provide a space for discussions about the connection between local development, social justice,
intercultural understanding, global citizenship and civic responsibility compared to the experiences lived by the
students.

The cases explored in class will be related to areas in which the students are working; linked to processes of
sustainable human development at the local level. Students will have to write a journal that serves as a medium to
observe their intercultural process and the connections sought by the course. The product of this experience will
be presented in a creative and informative way.

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A final essay and presentation is included to evaluate the students’ academic performance. The final essay will
reflect on the interaction of the students at the service-learning site and with the community at large. It will also
include a section on recommendations for the organization where the student worked, as well as the discussion of
some ideas for action aimed to improve local human development in the context of their organization.

Students are responsible for selecting their topics of research and of presenting the outline and final essay on time.
It is also the student responsibility to inform of any problem in the workspace. Students are expected to honor the
agreements made with their placements. Students will be assessed through various test practices, quizzes and one
final exam, which will cover the conceptual section of the course.

GRADING SYSTEM
The grading consists of the participation in the work and in the sessions, two exams, a journal, the solutions of
cases and the outline, the presentation and the final essay. Any delay on the presentation of assignments on the
due date will imply a deduction on the grade of the assignment.

Theory 45%
 Quizzes
 Final Exam 15%
 Participation and Attendance 25%
5%
Home Work 30%
 Journal
 Journal Presentation 5%
 Case Study (Essay) 5%
20%
Community Work 25%
 Community Work
 Final Presentation 15%
10%

Special Needs: In case of requiring additional time for taking exams, or if experiencing any circumstance during the course of
the term that would interfere with the student’s ability to complete his/her work or take a test, students should let the professor
know ahead of time.

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CALENDAR OF THEORETICAL CLASS SESSIONS

Week Session Unit Notes

1 Unit 1. How To Conceptualize Development. Part I.

1
2 Unit 1. How To Conceptualize Development. Part II. Quiz #1

Unit 2. Human Development: Measures and

3
Criticism. Part I.
2
Unit 2. Human Development: Measures and
4 Quiz #2
Criticism. Part II.
Unit 2. Human Development: Measures and
5
Criticism. Part III.
3
Unit 3. Social Policies for Development: Local,
6
National and Global Dimensions. Part I.
Unit 3. Social Policies for Development: Local,
7
National and Global Dimensions. Part II.
4
Unit 3. Social Policies for Development: Local,
8 Quiz #3
National and Global Dimensions. Part III.
Unit 3. Social Policies for Development: Local,
9 Essay.
National and Global Dimensions. Part IV.
5
10 Unit 4. Development Management. Part I.

11 Unit 4. Development Management. Part II. Quiz #4

6
12 Unit 4. Development Management. Part III.

13 Unit 5. Inclusive Development. Part I.

7
Quiz #5. Practice for final
14 Unit 5. Inclusive Development. Part II.
exam.

15 Final Exam 2-Hour Exam

8
16 Case Study Presentation 2-Hour Presentation

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ACADEMIC INTEGRITY

Students in this course are expected to abide by common sense, normal regulations on Academic Integrity.
Violations of the Academic Integrity policy include, but are not limited to plagiarism, fabrication, cheating, and
academic misconduct, including dishonest acts such as tampering with grades or taking part in obtaining or
distributing any part of an administered or un-administered test/assignment. The intent to violate this policy also
represents a violation of this policy.

Possible Sanctions for Violating Academic Integrity Policy

If an act of academic dishonesty is determined to have occurred, one or more of the following sanctions will be
imposed, depending on the severity of a first-time offense:
 Reduction of a course grade
 An “F” for the assignment or exam
 Failure for the entire course
 Other action deemed appropriate by the faculty member
 Any of the above sanctions with the inability to withdraw.

The decision about the sanction to apply will be made jointly by the course’s professor and ICDS’ Academic
Director, in consultation with home university on-site Director for the program, if applicable. The incident will be
reported to the home university and may result in an official conduct record for the student(s).

Second violation: A second violation will result in suspension or expulsion from the program, in addition to any
sanction issued from the list above.

Changes to Syllabus
The student acknowledges receipt of this syllabus and the information herein by continuing to attend this course.
The Instructor reserves the right to make changes to this syllabus if circumstances warrant such change, with
previous approval of ICDS’ Academic Director. All major changes will be provided to the student in writing.

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BIBLIOGRAPHY

D. K. Despotis. 2005.A Reassessment of the Human Development Index Via Data Envelopment Analysis. The
Journal of the Operational Research Society, Vol. 56, No. 8 pp. 969-980.

Susan E. Cozzens and Judith Sutz. 2012. Innovation in Informal Settings: A Research Agenda.

Enrique Leff. 2009. Degrowth, or deconstruction of the economy: Towards a sustainable world. Contours of
Climate Justice. Ideas for shaping new climate and energy politics.

Max-Neef. 1993. Desarrollo a escala humana: conceptos aplicaciones y algunas reflexiones. Urugay: Norgan-
Comunidad.

Saral Sarkar. 1995.Development Critique in Culture Trap. 
 Source: Economic and Political Weekly, Vol. 30, No.
29 (Jul. 22), pp. 1846-1851

Jeffrey L. Lewis and Karen Ann Watson-Gegeo. Fictions of Childhood: Toward a Sociohistorical Approach to
Human Development. 
 Ethos, Vol. 32, No. 1, pp. 3-33.

Herman E. Daly. Growth and Development: Critique of a Credo. Population and Development Review, Vol. 34,
No. 3, pp. 511-518.

Omar Haider Chowdhury. 1991. Human Development Index: A Critique. The Bangladesh Development Studies,
Vol. 19, No. 3, pp. 125-127.

June Nash. 2003. Indigenous Development Alternatives. Urban Anthropology and Studies of Cultural Systems
and World Economic Development, Vol. 32, No. 1, Inclusion and Exclusion in the Global Arena, pp. 57-
98.

Ambuj D. Sagar and Adil Najam. 1999. Shaping Human Development: Which Way Next?.
 Third World
Quarterly, Vol. 20, No. 4, pp. 743-751.

Anthony Hall & James Midgley. 2004. Social Policy for Development. London: SAGI Publications.

Wasudha Bhatt. 2007. The Crisis Of Development: A Historical Critique From The Focal Point Of Human Well
Being. The Indian Journal of Political Science, Vol. 68, No. 1, pp. 41-55.

Niels Lind. 2004. Values Reflected in the Human Development Index. Social Indicators Research, Vol. 66, No. 3,
pp. 283-293.