- Rethinking Africa’s Development
- Pan-Africanism & Regional Planning in Africa
- Anthropology of Development
- Adult Learning for Social Change
- Education Development and Reform
- Education Policy & Change
- Media and National Development
- Mobile Media and Communication
- Policy Evaluation and Implementation
- Public Administration Thought
- Regionalism in Africa
- Third world Politics
- Economic and Social Change
- Advanced Development Theories
- Action, Resistance and Alternative
- Workers, Change and continuity
- Development Theory and Practice
- Social Movements, Civil Society and the Working Class
- GPNS, Development and Decent Work
- Comparative Social Policy in Africa
- Social Development Internship
- Social and Economic Development
AXL5205SF RETHINKING AFRICA'S DEVELOPMENT
Convener: Dr H Chitonge and Professor L Ntsebeza (HEQSF level 9, 24 NQF credits)
Course entry requirements: Acceptance for an Honours or Master’s programme.
Course outline: This course looks at the various development approaches and theories adopted by African states at different times. The course examines some of the most important and influential theories of development which emerged in the context of the post-Second World War situation focusing on how these theories have been used in Africa. In examining the different development theories, the course also investigates how Africans have responded to these ideas in the context of the current sustained economic growth episode in many African countries. The course examines the question of whether African countries need to rethink these approaches and theories. Emerging views about Africa's development trajectory are also discussed.
AXL5206F PAN-AFRICANISM & REGIONAL INTEGRATION IN AFRICA
Convener: Dr H Chitong (HEQSF level 9, 24 NQF credits)
Course entry requirements: Acceptance for an Honours or Master’s programme.
Course outline: The course examines the political and economic theory and rationale for regional integration in general, with particular focus on how this has played out on the African continent. The course provides an overview of past and contemporary strategies, initiatives and programmes aimed at unifying the continent. Students are introduced to the key challenges and opportunities of integration and development in Africa.
AXL5402F ANTHROPOLOGY OF DEVELOPMENT
Convener: Dr H Macdonald (HEQSF level 9, 24 NQF credits)
Course entry requirements: Honours in Anthropology or Development Studies, or permission of Head of Section.
Course outline: The course is core to the programme in Practical Anthropology. It is an advanced course designed to focus on the theory and particularly the practice of development intervention taking an anthropological perspective. It will prepare participants for self-employment, public sector, private sector employment or development NGOs. It includes a fieldwork exercise based on a short field trip.
At the end of the course they will have:
- Developed a conceptual framework and the skills necessary to analyse relationships between cultural issues and the development process;
- Developed and enhanced anthropological research and data handling skills and learned to apply them practically; and
- Acquired some expertise in specialist fields selected from a wide range of options relevant to the anthropology of development.
The course is core for students in the Master’s in Practical Anthropology Programme and strongly recommended for students in the Master’s in Anthropology Programme.
EDN5503F ADULT LEARNING FOR SOCIAL CHANGE
Convener: Dr S Ismail (HEQSF level 9, 30 NQF credits)
Course entry requirements: Acceptance for the MEd.
Course outline: The course provides an advanced introduction to key theoretical perspectives on adult learning and knowledge-production, where learning is directed primarily towards social change. The focus is on informal contexts of learning such as social movements, community development projects, the labour movement, arts/cultural work, and health education. Close attention is paid to the ways in which `adult learning’ and `adult learners’ fit and contest theoretical debates concerning `intellectuals’, and theoretical debates concerning `everyday life’ and `social reproduction’. Theoretical resources will be drawn from feminist, radical pedagogy, postcolonial and cultural studies traditions
EDN5524S EDUCATION DEVELOPMENT & REFORM
Convener: J D Gilmour (HEQSF level 9, 30 NQF credits)
Course entry requirements: Acceptance for the MEd
Course outline: World-wide, education systems are characterised by varying types of inequality, ranging from physical access through to disparate outcomes. The reasons for this are complex and the consequences for individuals and societies of inequality enormous. This course will examine these phenomena at macro, national and international levels through reviewing international policy interventions at achieving systemic change; through reviewing how allocatory decisions can be/are made at these levels and through narrowing the lens to more local micro levels to develop frames for school change. The course utilises a case study approach which reveals the intricacies of moving from intentions to action.
EDN5525S EDUCATION POLICY & CHANGE
Convener: Professor P Christie (HEQSF level 9, 30 NQF credits)
Course entry requirements: Acceptance for the MEd
Course outline: The course provides an introduction to policy studies as a means for understanding educational change from system level to institutions and classrooms. It looks at theories of globalisation and the nation state, different approaches to policy formulation and implementation, and debates about the complexities of achieving change in education. What is education policy? How is it made? What are its possibilities and limitations as a means for achieving change through the many levels of an education system? These questions are addressed within the context of post-apartheid education policies in South Africa, with a particular emphasis on rights, social justice and development as social and educational goals.
FAM5014S MEDIA & NATIONAL DEVELOPMENT
Convener: Dr I Saleh (HEQSF level 9, 24 NQF credits)
Course entry requirements: Acceptance for an Honours or Master’s programme.
Course outline: The course deals with media and national development within the African context. It provides an exploratory overview of media developments in Africa as the digital era and convergence have raised critical policy question. The course also addresses long-term challenges for breaking Africa's reliance on donor funding in order to attain sustainability, exploring the possibilities for reducing current possible socio-political and economic constraints and maximising the benefits of active digital citizenship in South Africa. The course runs as a “master class” on the topic of monitoring and evaluation in media development and national policy. It features a range of lectures, group discussions, as well as field trips to meet with individuals engaged with work in the field.
FAM5038S MOBILE MEDIA & COMMUNICATION
Convener: Associate Professor M Walton (HEQSF level 9, 24 NQF credits)
Course entry requirements: Acceptance for an Honours or Master’s programme.
Course outline: The convergence of media, information and communication technologies (ICT) and the growth of global networks and relatively affordable mobile communication systems have been associated with dramatic shifts in society. This course aims to develop students’ understanding of how mobile technologies and media are experienced in everyday life by millions of mobile phone users in developing countries. Students will encounter a range of social approaches to mobile communication, including the social shaping of technologies, actor network theory, ethnographic and sociolinguistic approaches to interpersonal communication, human computer interaction and social network analysis.
The course covers topics such as the adoption and domestication of ICTs, the nature of mediated social networks and shifts in social power associated with many-to-many communication and new forms of social interaction and control across time and space. Claims about the developmental benefits and positive social ‘impact’ of mobile communications are critically considered. Case studies are explored to identify the implications of mobile communication for livelihoods, equality, health, literacy, education, economic inequality and democratic participation. Students are introduced to a range of social research methodologies from which they select an appropriate method to investigate a focused research question.
POL5007S POLICY EVALUATION AND IMPLEMENTATION
Convener: Dr V Naidoo (HESQF level 9 24 NQF credits)
Course Entry Requirements: Acceptance for an Honours or Master’s programme. Prerequisite: POL4006F, or by permission of the course convener to eligible Honours or Master’s students.
Course Outline: This course examines the implementation and evaluation components of the public policy process. The course will be grounded in a survey of the empirical research and theoretical arguments on implementation and evaluation, focusing on a critical assessment of their influence on the public policy process. This will be combined with reference to practical case examples of strategic, programme and project implementation and evaluation from South Africa and other countries.
POL5027F PUBLIC ADMINISTRATION THOUGHT (May not be offered in 2016)
Course Convener: Professor R Cameron (HESQF level 9, 24 NQF credits)
Course Entry Requirements: Admission to an Honours or Master’s programme, and by permission of the course convener.
Course Outline: In South Africa, Public Administration is largely taught as an art. This unique course on Public Administration Thought attempts to move beyond this practical application and traces the intellectual evolution of the field as an academic discipline. The course aims to lay the foundation for Public Administration scholarship. It examines the major theories and concepts that underpin the field and also looks at the major thinkers in the discipline such as Wilson, Weber, Simon and Waldo. It exposes students to the contending approaches in the study of public administration and looks at the relationship between theory and practice. The second part of the course argues that the 'nuts and bolts' approach to the subject has led to the intellectual crisis of Public Administration in South Africa. This has led not only to a paucity of knowledge-based research in the field but has also contributed to narrowly trained public servants with limited understanding of crucial Public Administration debates which inform practice.
POL5043F REGIONALISM IN AFRICA (Not offered in 2016)
Convener: Dr J Akokpari (HEQSF level 9, 24 NQF credits)
Course entry requirements: Admission to an Honours or Master’s programme, and by permission of the course convener.
Course outline: This course aims at equipping students with the skills and knowledge to analyse regional economic formations in Africa, thereby enhancing their understanding of regionalist impulses on the continent. It proceeds on the premise that regional integration has become a key feature of Africa’s political economy and as a viable route to the continent’s development. Thus since the independence decade of the 1960s, various regional blocs have emerged in Africa. The course examines the emergence, performances and, in some cases, the demise of regional organisations in Africa. The regional blocs to be studied in the course include the OAU and AU, ECOWAS, SADC, and the revived East African Community. A further objective is to analyse the prospects of these regional bodies under globalisation. The first two lectures will be devoted to introducing students to the broader theories of regionalism.
POL5045S THIRD WORLD POLITICS
Convener: Dr L Paremoer (HEQSF level 9, 24 NQF credits)
Course entry requirements: Admission to an Honours or Master’s programme, and by permission of the course convener.
Course outline: This course critically evaluates prominent discourses about development, modernity, independence and solidarity in the Third World. We will address the following questions: How and why did the Enlightenment and the processes of colonialism and imperialism give rise to the idea of the Third World? What, if anything, was distinctive about the characteristics and ambitions of the Third World governments in comparison to other blocs in the international community of sovereign nation-states? Which power relations associated with the “West”, “First World” or “Second World” did Third World elites critique, and which power relations did they try to replicate in their own states after attaining independence? What are the prospects for producing scholarship on the Third World that is critical, reliable, embedded in the experiences of Third World peoples, original and transformative?
SOC5007F ECONOMIC AND SOCIAL CHANGE
Convener: Prof N Nattrass (HESQF level 9, 12 NQF credits)
Course Entry Requirements: Acceptance for an Honours or Master’s programme
Course Outline: This course deals with theoretical literature that underpins research-based publications in the broad field of economic and social change, focusing on dominant themes in contemporary industrial sociology and developmental analysis. It currently explores the socio-economic causes and consequences of the 2008 global economic crisis.
SOC5010F ADVANCED DEVELOPMENT THEORIES
Convener: Dr R Chaturvedi (HEQSF level 9, 12 NQF credits)
Course entry requirements: Acceptance for an Honours or Master’s programme.
Course outline: The course examines some of the most important and influential theories of development in the contemporary period, particularly the post-Cold War era which is characterised by the triumph of global capitalism. The first weeks of the course provide the historical context, focusing on the origin and development of capitalism across the globe.
SOC5013S ACTION, RESISTANCE, ALTERNATIVES
Convener: Dr J Grossman (HEQSF level 8, 12 NQF credits)
Course entry requirements: Acceptance for an Honours or Master’s programme.
Course outline: The World Social Forum and many social movements and other organisations organise and mobilise around the slogan: “Another world is possible”. This course examines key features of working class experience in the context of globalisation. It examines the development of unions, social movements and protest action, focusing on the collective responses of the ‘discontents’ of globalisation. The central concern is acts and processes of resistance in the context of recurring capitalist crisis, and visions of alternative central to that resistance. Though a focus on selected organisations, events and issues, the course aims to contextualise and historicise working class resistance in the lived experience of globalisation and examine major debates within and about such resistance. Particular attention will be paid to issues of alienation and commodification in the struggle for alternatives in everyday life. Specific examples are drawn from recent South African history while the issues and questions are explored in the global context in which they exist.
SOC5015S WORKERS, CHANGE & CONTINUITY
Convener: Dr J Grossman (HEQSF level 8, 12 NQF credits)
Course entry requirements: Acceptance for an Honours or Master’s programme.
Course outline: The transition from Apartheid was accompanied with hopes and promises of “a better life for all”.
This course explores the development of the workers movement in the struggle against Apartheid for that “better life for all”. It examines central aspects of the lived experience of the working class post-Apartheid, exploring the role of working class organisation and action. It is concerned with the question of change and continuity and the key issues which have emerged out of the struggle for change. These include visions of change held in the past, the meaning of such visions in the present, and their legacy for the future. Through a focus on selected organisations, events and issues, the course aims to contextualise and historicise processes of organisation and mobilisation, and examine major debates within and about these processes. Particular attention will be paid to practices and visions of collectivism, solidarity and sharing in the context of competitive individualism.
SOC5024S DEVELOPMENT THEORY AND PRACTICE
Convener: Dr J de Wet (HESQF level 9, 24 NQF credits)
Course Entry Requirements: Acceptance for an Honours or Master’s programme
Course Outline: This course links an academic training in Development Sociology to the needs of development practitioners working in non-profit organisations (NPOs) in Southern Africa. It explores the interface between academic knowledge and practitioner knowledge from a people-centred perspective. It contributes to personal and organisational effectiveness of middle and senior level personnel by developing, for example: analytical, policy formulation, financial management and evaluation skills. As part of the course, students undertake supervised internships in NPOs operating in the Cape Peninsula.
SOC5026S Social Movements, Civil Society and the Working Class (not offered in 2016)
Convener: Dr J Grossman (HESQF level 9, 24 NQF credits)
Course Entry Requirements: Acceptance for an Honours or Master’s programme
Course Outline: The course aims to explore resistance, through organisation and mobilisation in everyday working class life, to the lived experience of capitalism in the context of globalisation, to critically analyse trends and developments and the role of developing social movements in the context of structured social inequalities: to explore debates about social movements and civil society. The focus will be on the working class and the processes, through which ordinary workers survive, resist and sometimes shape historical developments.
SOC5034S GPNS DEVELOPMENT & DECENT WORK
Convener: A Benya (HEQSF level 9, 12 NQF credits)
Course entry requirements: Acceptance for Master’s programme.
Course outline: This course explores key aspects of economic development and related implications for 'decent work'. The clothing industry serves as a case study of the way that changing global patterns of consumption, labour-market characteristics and production capabilities have shaped the nature of work and wages in developing countries. We explore how the pressure on wages has been contested through the notion of decent work and through different trade union strategies. The course concludes by focussing specifically on trade union strategy and violence in South Africa, most notably with regard to violence and the struggle over wages in the mining industry.
SWK5000F Comparative Social Policy in Africa
Convener: A/Prof V Taylor (HESQF level 9, 24 NQF credits)
Course Entry Requirements: Acceptance for a Master’s in the Department of Social Development. The course is also open to students in cognate fields.
Course Outline: This course is designed to provide students with an understanding of the contemporary debates and issues in the field of social policy, with special reference to the South African context. It highlights theoretical as well as technical concerns in the process of public policy analysis and formulation. The course encourages students to understand policy within the broad arena of governance and emerging democratic practice in South Africa. The impacts of globalisation on policy processes and outcomes are also analysed. Given the changes in the geo-political landscape at a global, regional and national level, the course challenges students to understand the linkages between the international and national factors that contribute to social policy developments. It also attempts to focus attention on the complex nature of policy processes, content and outcomes within the political economy of change. The relationships between the public, private and civil society sectors and issues of participation and power are examined.
SWK5012H SOCIAL DEVELOPMENT INTERNSHIP
Convener: TBA (HEQSF level 9, 24 NQF credits)
Course entry requirements: Acceptance on the Master’s programme in Social Development.
Course outline: It will consist of a 12-week programme within an approved organisation. The programme will be scheduled in accordance with the tasks required and the parameters of the organisation. During this period, the student will be required to observe, record and analyse the links between poverty eradication and social development policy and programmes practised by the organisation. Students will have to critically analyse how the organisation attempts to address poverty and how development needs link to a national development planning framework. The internship should contribute to an understanding of how social development professionals can work in on governmental and government agencies to promote people centred development. Students will also have to show evidence of their understanding of development theory and development planning processes influencing transformation in South Africa. In addition, students will be required to describe and analyse a particular aspect of policy in depth and to make recommendations regarding programmes and projects in that field.
SWK5014S SOCIAL AND ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT
Convener: A/Prof V Taylor (HEQSF level 9, 24 NQF credits)
Course entry requirements: Acceptance on a Master’s programme in the Department of Social Development. This course is open to other Master’s students in cognate fields.
Course outline: This course is designed to improve students’ knowledge and understanding of social and economic development processes. Taking a ‘development as freedom’ and capabilities approach to social and economic development, the course highlights the need for strong links between social and economic goals and processes at the local and global levels. Issues related to growth and human development are discussed. The relationships among different kinds of economic security and how these impact on human well-being are explored. Students examine intersections of inter alia race and gender with social and economic development processes.