FLKM4310 Struggles for justice and equality in international development, education and sustainabilities Emneplan

This course examines core characteristics of struggles over livelihood, equality and social justice in international development, education, and sustainability, at multiple levels of scale. It centres on the efforts of movements and social groups to achieve social change, including tensions between these and defensive efforts to protect their livelihoods. Case-studies are drawn on to illustrate these tensions, and provide insight into key debates and proposed pathways to transform society.

No prerequisite knowledge required.

After completing the course, the student is expected to have achieved the following learning outcomes defined in terms of knowledge, skills and general competence:

Knowledge

The student:

• has a thorough overview of theories and approaches to power and inequality.
• has thorough knowledge of the key debates, and tensions, at work in struggles for social change to resist or overcome structural inequalities and injustices.
• has thorough knowledge of the nature and dimensions of these struggles within a Global South - North dynamic.
• has thorough knowledge of and insight into the role of education (in both the Global South and the Global North) in the maintenance of mainstream perspectives about global challenges such as sustainable development, climate change, and poverty.
• has thorough knowledge of and insight into the role of education (in both the Global South and the Global North) in projects to advance transformative visions of sustainable development and social transformation / social change, including system change.

Skills

The student:

• is capable of explaining the dominant and historical roles of education in societies in relation to the reproduction, reform, transformation of inequalities and injustices.
• is capable of analysing mainstream and alternative struggles in the Global South and North about global environmental and climate issues, development and inequity, and sustainable development.
• is capable of analysing current cases-studies, identifying potential causes for inequality and injustice and strategies for their transformation.

General competence

The student:

• has knowledge of how to assess current struggles for more democratic and equal social change, in terms of key social science concepts and processes.
• is capable of explaining and problematising relevant theory in the research field.
• is capable of using and disseminating new knowledge and academic issues relating to education and sustainable development in the Global South and North.

This course is grounded in the ongoing crises of development, education, and climate change, and the associated need to understand these phenomena and their possible transformation. The broad focus is on struggles for greater equality and justice across these dimensions. This focus includes struggles at multiple levels of scale, across different contexts, with attention to the history and causes of existing crises; their global North-South dimension; and key points of contestation. The course will elaborate theories on inequality and injustice, including theories of power, power structures, and resistance. This work examines the structural dynamics and agents involved in such struggles, and the potentials for agents of change to advance more just and equal futures. These include old and new social movements, how they relate to established power holders and institutions of power, and explorations of education as a site of social reproduction, contestation, and potential transformation.

The work and teaching methods used in the course are characterised by lectures and workshop / seminar style dialogue and discussions, to which the students bring their own particular interests and experiences, and diverse academic backgrounds. See the general programme description for further details.

The following required coursework must be approved before the student can take the exam:

• Students must give a presentation lasting 15-30 minutes (individually or as part of a group) of an article, chapter in a book etc. at a plenary session during the course.
• Students must individually submit a 1-page / approx. 450-word preliminary description of their master’s thesis research topic.
• 80 % attendance requirement (see the programme description for more information).

The purpose of the coursework requirement is to ensure all students begin the work of articulating their master’s research topic, to receive feedback about it, and to support the future preparation of full research project descriptions.

The purpose of the oral presentation is to encourage students to engage in more oral activity and improve their oral presentation skills, and to present the academic content to fellow students and the lecturer(s) in an organised and effective manner. The oral presentation is intended to help the students to acquire the skills specified in the learning outcomes for the course.

The course is assessed on the basis of an individual written home exam over five days, with a scope of 3,500 words +/- 10%.

Resit/rescheduled exam:

Resit/rescheduled exam is organised in the same way as the ordinary exam

Examination support material is permitted.

Letter grades ranging from A to F are used, with A being the highest grade and E the poorest pass grade, and F being a fail grade.

The exam will be assessed by one internal and one external examiner.