SO4A8      Half Unit
Leadership and Social Change

This information is for the 2019/20 session.

Teacher responsible

Prof Armine Ishkanian PAN.8.01

Availability

This course is available on the MSc in Inequalities and Social Science. This course is not available as an outside option.

This course is not available as an outside option and is available only to Atlantic Fellows for Social and Economic Equity MSc students. This is a compulsory course for these students and non-AFSEE Fellows will not permitted to take this course.

Course content

The course responds to the needs of the AFSEE Fellows to develop critical skills and understandings of leadership within various contexts and themes indexed to transforming global inequality.  This approach marries a structural analysis of global inequality and its manifestations with practical and cognitive skills that will provide our students with the tools to bring such systemic change into being. Crucially, the course is heavily rooted in theories of practice, in which Fellows are introduced to and demonstrate  a sound knowledge and critical appreciation of their field and its associated practice and research techniques, and show that these techniques can be successfully applied in revealing or challenging injustice and inequality. The course will consist of lectures, presentations, seminars and workshops. Lectures will introduce Fellows to key concepts, approaches and techniques for understanding and challenging inequality. Workshops and seminars will help Fellows clarify and deepen their understanding of points and issues raised in the lectures, through practical work carried out individually and in groups.

Teaching

6 hours of lectures and 10 hours of workshops in both teaching weeks.

Week 1 – 4-8 November 2019 - Leadership and Social Change

Week 2 – 20-24 April 2020 – Leadership and Social Change

Formative coursework

The formative coursework for both assessments will comprise of presentations of ideas and works-in-progress that are critiqued and given feedback. Fellows will present abstracts for their essays/thinkpieces and offer rationale for their choice of subject, motivation and its relationship both to the themes of the week and the values of the programme, but equally its relationship to their own practice, experience and ambitions for future work, campaigns and activism. This will be presented to the course’s teaching team following the completion of the course in the form of short, 5-10 minute pitches where lecturers will offer feedback on the ideas presented, which will then form the basis for their Essay (Summative Assessment).

For the presentation, Fellows will collaboratively work in groups outlining their learning on leadership and social change. Fellows will present their ideas to the group, and complete self-assessments following their presentations.

 

Indicative reading

Goleman, Daniel. “What Makes a Leader?” Harvard Business Review (November‐December 1998).

Gaventa, J. 2006. Finding the Spaces for Change: A Power Analysis. IDS Bulletin 37 (6). November 2006.

Green, D. 2016. How Change Happens. Oxford University Press.

Also accessible as a free download at < http://how-change-happens.com/download/>

Green, D. 2016. Why Systems Thinking Changes Everything for Activists and Reformers. <http://blogs.worldbank.org/publicsphere/why-systems-thinking-changes-everything-activists-and-reformers> 11.2.2016.

Goss, S. 2015. Systems Leadership: A View from the Bridge. OPM.

Hickel, J. (2017) The Divide: A Brief Guild to Global Inequality and its Solutions. William Heinemann. London.

Meadows, D. 2008. Thinking in Systems: A Primer. Ed. D. Wright. Vermont, USA. Chelsea Green Publishing.

Raworth, K (2018) Doughnut Economics: Seven Ways to Think Like a 21st-Century Economist. London. Random House Business

Senge, P, Hamilton, H & Kania, J 2015 The Dawn of System Leadership. Stanford Social Innovation Review. Winter 2015. Pp: 27-33.

Ulex Project. “Transformative Collaboration: A Primer,” accessed 28 August 2018, http://ulexproject.org/wpcontent/

uploads/2017/01/trans‐coll‐publication1.pdf.

Assessment

Essay (70%, 2000 words) in the LT.
Presentation (30%) in the ST.

70% Essay/Thinkpiece 2000 words in LT

30% Group Presentation in ST

An electronic copy of the assessed essay/thinkpiece, to be uploaded to Moodle, no later than 4.00pm on the last Thursday of Michaelmas Term.

Key facts

Department: Sociology

Total students 2018/19: 8

Average class size 2018/19: Unavailable

Controlled access 2018/19: No

Value: Half Unit

Guidelines for interpreting course guide information

Personal development skills

  • Leadership
  • Self-management
  • Team working
  • Problem solving
  • Application of information skills
  • Communication
  • Specialist skills