Approved Spring 2004
COMMUNITIES IN GLOBAL CONTEXT
Level III
RATIONALE: Contemporary communities, especially but not exclusively those in urban areas, are linked in a number of ways to communities in other countries and on other continents. Many communities and segments of communities are transnational in culture, language, and even politics. Moreover, all communities share the circumstance of being heavily and constantly affected by the global economy, in which major changes often result from decisions that are made in distant places and implemented by multinational organizations. Contemporary communities, therefore, operate politically in interaction not only with regional and national structures, but also with international ones.
Most significant issues of social justice have global dimensions. Therefore, in order to understand and participate effectively in modern communities (the primary objectives of students in the Community Studies Program), it is extremely important to comprehend their global aspects. These aspects can only be understood from an interdisciplinary perspective.
COMPETENCY: Can demonstrate an understanding of the multiple ways in which communities are embedded in networks and relationships that extend across national boundaries, and can describe the effects on community dynamics.
1. Examine relevant concepts and knowledge from history, the social sciences, and cultural studies to explain the multiple, connected global relationships that affect communities.
2. Select one global phenomenon and examine how relevant concepts and knowledge from history, the social sciences, and cultural studies help to explain how this global phenomenon affects the structures and cultures of communities.
3. Select one specific community with a transnational character and identify and report on the major ways in which the global phenomenon you have chosen affects the structure, politics, culture, and economics of the community.
1. For Criterion 1, you will examine literature on globalization with approval of the faculty evaluator. You must select at least two relevant concepts from six sources, from history, social science, and cultural studies, and show how the concepts help explain how global relationships affect communities.
2. For Criterion 2, you may choose among such global phenomena as migration, changes in consumption and work, international investment flows, the movement of jobs, international and national regulation of economic activity, multinational organization of business, and the operation of worldwide information media.
3. For Criterion 3, you must select a community in which residents are clearly affected by global phenomena and for which there are at least six published sources of information available. The final report may be a written paper or an oral presentation.
EXAMPLES OF DEMONSTRATION:
Prior Learning: A student who is an immigrant from Guatemala presents to an evaluator an account, based on personal experience and documentation, of the impact of civil war on the village where the student was born. The student then reflects on that village's experience based on reading about other communities affected by war.
Independent Learning: A group of three students born in different nations work with an advisor/evaluator. Utilizing their own experience as well as their family and community history, they compare the environmental forces that affected those communities and contributed to migration.
Course: This competency could also be demonstrated by successfully completing a course on globalization or world history.
Field Project: Working with researchers at the Gaston Institute for Latino Public Policy or the Asian-American Institute at UMass Boston, students participate in a project to study the causes of migration from a nation or region in the Caribbean or in Asia . Students design and make their own report on some aspect of the research project's findings.