Class Goals, Objectives and Themes:
G.E. Goals
This class meets General Education Curriculum Goals for D5, Contemporary Inernational Perspectives, covering:
". . . major economic and political dimensions of human activity, including consideration of differential acess to natural resources, wealth, and power within and among the world's nations."
Class Objectives
The class's specific objectives are that students:
1. Know major regional features and place names
2. Understand each region’s role in the global political economic system, and how and why that role has shifted throughout modern history
3. Become aware of the presence or absence, and location, of critical natural endowments within each region, including oil, water and arable land, and how those conditions help shape their economic opportunities.
4. Describe the dominant economic and political systems found in a region, and explain how and why they have transformed throughout the modern era.
5. Describe how political economic histories have contributed to modern environmental problems
6. Describe, and explain the reasons behind, each region’s demographic breakdowns and transitions, levels of urbanization, major trends in immigration and emigration, and indicators of human development such as educational levels in each region.
7. Locate and describe major ethno-linguistic and religious groups within each region, and describe how they have contributed to social conditions and change
8. Explain the underlying context of major geopolitical conflicts within and between the regions
Class Themes
Taking each region in turn, we will systematically address the following issues:
- Political economic history
- Core-periphery relationships
- Ideological economic models
- Predominant economic sectors
- Industrialization strategies
- Formation of nation-states
- Trends towards supra-nationalism
- Geopolitical conflicts
- Demographic transition
- National fertility policies
- Urbanization
- Immigration / Emigration
- Ethno-linguistic groups
- Dominant religions
- Role of religion and ethnic tensions in socio-political issues
- Natural resource endowments & its role in economic development
- Environmental problems