DSOC 6001 - The Empirics of Development and Social Change

(SBA-AG) (CU-SBY)

Spring. 3 credits. Student option grading.

P. Eloundou-Enyegue.

The purpose of this course is to review, critically discuss, and apply several analytical approaches for measuring and explaining societal change. It is designed as a bridge between courses on development theory and research methods. The course begins with a review of the research cycle, first as a technical process, then as a sociological one. It also examines how a variety of methodological traditions (macroregression, microregression, evaluation studies, qualitative studies, longitudinal studies, experimental studies, mixed approaches) can be applied to empirically examine the competing claims from contending theories of social change and development. The relative strengths and limitations of these various approaches are discussed. Finally, the course discusses opportunities for methodological triangulation, including decomposition methods that can be used to study social change by aggregating micro-level evidence on individual behavior.

Outcome 1: Explain major methodological debates in the social science literature on development.

Outcome 2: Understand the development-research industry.

Outcome 3: Discuss recent methodological advances in research on the drivers of development and social change.

Outcome 4: Discuss the strengths, weaknesses and complementarities of different research traditions, with respect to understanding the processes of development and social change.