IDSC Course of Study

Master’s Degree Requirements

The master’s degree in International Development and Social Change requires a minimum of 12 graduate course units. These include five required core courses, including a final MA project, two skills courses, and five elective courses to form the student’s field of specialization.
Through action-oriented, critical studies linking theory and practice, this master’s program offers opportunities to specialize in such topics as political economy, conflict and development, education and development, health and development, culture and development, resource management, community-based development, gender and development, and more.

Required Core Courses

IDCE 360 Development Theory provides a critical overview of classical and contemporary theories of development across many disciplines. Encourages thinking historically, politically and analytically about the multiplicity of development processes and the complex relations of power that underlie them.

IDCE 361 Development Program and Project Management develops skills in needs assessment, project design, implementation, management, budgeting, scheduling, work plans, and monitoring/evaluation.

One Graduate-level Economics Course, such as:

IDCE 30217 Economic Fundamentals for International Development introduces economic history, as well as microeconomics and macroeconomics to the non-economists, while illustrating practical applications of these techniques to real-world development situations.

IDCE 30291 Research Design and Methods (or its equivalents) reviews topics in social research design and methodology including problem definition, research strategies, sampling, data collection techniques and procedures, and proposal writing.

IDCE 30213 Final MA Project is the culminating experience of the IDSC Masters program where students have the opportunity to develop their research and professional interests independently.

IDSC Skill Courses (a sampling, 2 required)

Skill courses include:

• IDCE 30229 Program Monitoring and Evaluation
• IDCE 30292 Participatory Development Planning
• IDCE 30254 Gender, Power and Social Change
• IDCE 30271 NGOS and Advocacy
• IDCE 30328 Public Communication Seminar
• IDCE 30239 Microfinance, Gender, and Liberalism
• IDCE 30206 Technology and Sustainability: Perspectives from the Global South
• IDCE 30201 GIS and Community Profiles: Mapping Strategies for Planning and Community Development
• IDCE 366 Principles of Conflict Negotiation
• IDCE 310 Raster GIS, or IDCE 388 Vector GIS

IDSC Elective Courses to form an area of specialization* (a sampling, 5 required)

Students select electives to focus their research, deepen their understanding of, and develop an area of specialization in one of the following areas: conflict and development, culture and development, political economy, gender and development, resource management, community-based development, health and development, education and development, geographical information systems, and more. This list is a sampling of specializations. Students may establish one of their own choosing.

Courses might include:

• IDCE 30269 Raced Nature, Gendered Developments: The Political Economy of Environmental Conservation
• IDCE 30243 Seeing Like a Humanitarian Agency
• IDCE 30235 Globalization and its Illicit Commodities
• IDCE 30256 Peasants, Rural Development and Agrarian Change
• IDCE 312 Famine and Food Security
• IDCE 354 Beyond Victims and Guardian Angels: Third World Women, Gender and Development
• IDCE 304 International and Comparative Analysis of Community Development
• IDCE 341 Management of NGO Organization
• IDCE 30221 Education and Development
• IDCE 30248 Gender and Health
• IDCE 30207 Gender, Militarization and Development
• IDCE 373 Social Movements, Globalization and the State
• IDCE 369 Religion, Identity and Violence in a Globalizing World
• IDCE 353 International Political Ecology

Please view Clark's official Academic Catalog for a complete listing of course offerings. Remember that each IDCE program offers flexibility so students can take classes across programs. IDCE also maintains vibrant links with other educational departments at Clark University, including the prestigious School of Geography and the Graduate School of Management.

Directed Study
As part of your elective credits, you have the option of doing undertaking an internship or a directed study with any IDSC core or affiliate faculty member. Directed studies are an opportunity for students to engage in advanced level work (beyond what they learn in seminars) on issues of special interest to them. Directed studies take different form (e.g. literature review, annotated bibliography, research paper, thesis preparation, grant proposal development, etc.) depending on the interest and abilities of each student, and the degree of involvement from the faculty.

Final MA Project
All four programs within IDCE offer three options for a final MA project, which is the culminating experience of an IDCE Masters degree. In IDSC the three options are: (1) a Research Paper, (2) a Practitioner Report, or (3) a Thesis. None of the options is considered more prestigious than the others. Students choose the option that is most compatible with their research and professional interests, and then develop these interests independently through the final project.