Unit information: Children in a Global Context in 2023/24

Unit name	Children in a Global Context
Unit code	SPOL32008
Credit points	20
Level of study	H/6
Teaching block(s)	Teaching Block 1 (weeks 1 - 12)
Unit director	Dr. Twum-Danso Imoh
Open unit status	Not open
Units you must take before you take this one (pre-requisite units)	None
Units you must take alongside this one (co-requisite units)	None
Units you may not take alongside this one	None
School/department	School for Policy Studies
Faculty	Faculty of Social Sciences and Law

Unit Information

This unit will adopt sociological, anthropological and social policy approaches to explore conceptualisations of childhood, child development and children’s rights within global processes, policies and programmes and examine how these interact with the reality of children’s lives in diverse social, political, cultural and economic contexts in both the Global North and Global South.

Aims

• To explore conceptualisations of childhood, child development and children’s rights within global processes as articulated within international laws, global social policies and the efforts of international agencies and institutions.
• To examine how global processes, policies and programmes shape and influence child-focused initiatives in a range of social, cultural, economic and political contexts in both the Global North and the Global South.
• To assess the responses of children and their families to these global processes, policies and programmes upon encountering them in the contexts in which they live their everyday lives -both in the Global North and the Global South.
• To explore the extent to which the binary that is seen to exist between the Global North and South is useful in the study of childhoods and children’s lives globally.

Your learning on this unit

At the end of the unit students will:

1. Demonstrate an understanding of the ways that global processes, policies and actors conceptualise and understand childhood, child development and children's rights.
2. Evaluate a range of child-focused global social policies and their implementation in a range of contexts in the Global North and South.
3. Assess the varied response of a range of local actors, including children and their families in diverse contexts in the Global North and South, to child-focused social policies and programmes influenced or initiated by global processes and discourses.
4. Critically discuss the utility of the binary that is seen to exist between the Global North and Global South and its implications for the study of childhoods and children’s everyday lives in both contexts.

How you will learn

The teaching approach will include weekly lectures, seminars and facilitated study group sessions by the convenor. Lectures will cover more conceptual and theoretical aspects of the module whilst more applied, substantive, in-depth and extended learning will take the form of self-paced, material delivered electronically, and undertaken individually or supported by pair and group work in seminars and facilitated study groups sessions. Students will receive regular feedback on the various tasks for their portfolio during the course of the unit through the seminars and facilitate group sessions.

How you will be assessed

Portfolio (3000 words) - 100%

This assessment covers ILOs 1-4

Students will be required to submit a piece of critical writing (800 words) earlier in the term, which will be worth 10% of the Portfolio and covers ILOs 1&2. This will provide an opportunity for feedback which they can apply to the rest of the Portfolio, the remainder of which will be worth 90% and covers ILOs 3&4.

Resources

If this unit has a Resource List, you will normally find a link to it in the Blackboard area for the unit. Sometimes there will be a separate link for each weekly topic.

If you are unable to access a list through Blackboard, you can also find it via the Resource Lists homepage. Search for the list by the unit name or code (e.g. SPOL32008).

How much time the unit requires
Each credit equates to 10 hours of total student input. For example a 20 credit unit will take you 200 hours of study to complete. Your total learning time is made up of contact time, directed learning tasks, independent learning and assessment activity.

See the University Workload statement relating to this unit for more information.

Assessment
The Board of Examiners will consider all cases where students have failed or not completed the assessments required for credit. The Board considers each student's outcomes across all the units which contribute to each year's programme of study. For appropriate assessments, if you have self-certificated your absence, you will normally be required to complete it the next time it runs (for assessments at the end of TB1 and TB2 this is usually in the next re-assessment period).
The Board of Examiners will take into account any exceptional circumstances and operates within the Regulations and Code of Practice for Taught Programmes.