Please note:
This course is taught in English. For Dutch speaking students, parts of the course may be offered in Dutch. See the course manual for further details.
1) to acquire knowledge and understanding of global perspectives & cultural diversity in the area of childhood, youth, and education;
2) to acquire knowledge and understanding of the international policy context, including international development, concerning children and young people, upbringing and education;
3) to acquire an understanding of how knowledge of youth, education and society can be translated into a variety of different social, economic and cultural contexts;
4) to gain skills to apply the course knowledge into individual scientific writing;
5) to gain skills to apply the course knowledge into a practical knowledge related to interventions and policy in a collaborative context.
Relation course goals and exams
In the individual paper students will be examined with respect to their knowledge and understanding of the theoretical knowledge that is required in the course (course goals 1 to 3) as well as how they are able to put these insights into scientific writing (course goal 4). In the group assignments students will be examined with respect to how they are able to apply the scientific knowledge of the course (goal 1 to 3) into a practice based assignment in a collaborative context (course goal 5).
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The focus of the course is the question how the development of youth and children can be optimized when working cross-culturally from a scientific, professional and policy perspective.
Within this general theme, we address themes as health, care and education and work as interrelated but separate subthemes. We study programmatic and policy attempts to improve the living circumstances and educational environments of youth, and analyse the scientific bases that underlies these. International development takes a central position in the course, next to other situations in which cultural knowledge is transferred cross-culturally, such as in situations of migration. Special target groups, such as child soldiers, street children, children with disabilities or children affected by AIDS will be addressed, while also paying attention to the situation of immigrant children and youth in welfare countries.
A key theme in the course is cultural diversity and the understanding of cultural diversity in the context of knowledge transfer between communities that are geographically or culturally far apart. How can we transfer knowledge that was constituted and formed in a Western setting and make it work in a non-Western setting? What should be the position of that (Western) knowledge in an increasingly culturally diverse world? How can this knowledge transfer be understood from the perspective of globalization, especially given the contact with other regions in the world? In this course you learn to think and act as a scientist and a professional when dealing with or working with scientific knowledge, intervention programs and policies, in (inter)national contexts that are culturally diverse.
You will examine Western ideas on international development, as well as the need to reshape these ideas. You will consider how local differences between the lives of young people in the Western world and the non-Western world, for example, determine their opportunities, developmental prospects and limitations. In this process, you will learn how to think from multiple perspectives. For example, more instrumental and technological approaches are contrasted with more critical views on international collaboration.
On this course, you will learn to take position in guided discussion groups, and write a position paper. Furthermore, you will gain practical experience with applying scientific knowledge in designing an intervention in an intercultural setting. Students may choose to do this either in an international development setting or in a migration setting.
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