Graduate Program in Development

The Case for Interdisciplinary Training in Development and Inequality

The Focus on Inequality

Admissions and Funding

The Training Program and Core Requirements

Research in Development and Inequality at Brown

Partner Institutions and International Collaboration

Faculty with Research Interests in Development

Courses On Development and Inequality

Contacts

The Training Program and Core Requirements

The GPD training program has three components: coursework, community building, research and fieldwork. All GPD trainees must complete the "core requirements" and are expected to be active in community building activities. IGERT fellows must also complete the "research and fieldwork" requirements.

Coursework

GPD trainees are required to take the following:

1) a foundational interdisciplinary course, DS 2000

2) an interdisciplinary field methods course DS 2010

3) two (1 week) modules in research techniques

4) a methods or substantive course outside their discipline.

Development and inequality - DS 2000: This course provides an overview of theories, concepts, and debates from the four social science disciplines with respect to inequality and development. The goal is to expose students to the varied conceptual prisms through which each disciple examines inequality, including the significantly different ways in which the disciplines measure and evaluate inequality. New approaches to thinking about inequality, including the capabilities approach, relational perspectives in sociology, the emergent literature on participation in political science, and new debates on social exclusion will be emphasized. The course will review state-of-the-art research and emphasize disciplinary complementarities in developing new perspectives on inequality. The course is team-taught.

Fieldwork across disciplines - DS 2010: This course draws on the collective fieldwork experience of GPD faculty and visiting research collaborators to expose students to a range of fieldwork challenges and practices. The course is team-taught and is organized around presentations from faculty and visitors conducting research on inequality. In addition to addressing a range of key methodological challenges of fieldwork (case selection, data reliability, linking micro mechanisms to macro phenomena, making sense of context), the course will also address the "nuts and bolts" of fieldwork. This includes developing contacts and networks, dealing with unfamiliar institutional environments, working with collaborators, and handling politically or culturally sensitive issues. The course will also review IRB protocols and address the range of ethical issues that come into play doing fieldwork. The primary student assignment in the course will be to produce a research proposal.

Training modules in research techniques: In order to give trainees exposure to different research techniques, GPD sponsors a number of intensive research modules during the winter break and early summer. The modules include spatial analysis, demographic analysis and survey methods, interviewing and ethnographic methods, and program evaluation. Trainees are required to take two modules. Modules last 1-2 weeks and are designed to introduce trainees to a specific technique, identify where/when its use is appropriate, demonstrate some basic applications to the question of inequality, inculcate basic skills in using the technique, and where appropriate review existing sources of data. The modules are designed so that trainees who develop an interest in furthering their skills in a particular technique will be in a position at the end of the module to take more advanced courses.

Community-building Activities

One of the most important objectives of GPD is to build a cross-disciplinary research community of graduate students and faculty with shared interests who actively learn from each other. GPD sponsors three community-building activities.

The Colloquium on Comparative Research: This year-long speaker series hosts Brown faculty, international collaborators, and outside speakers who give public talks on their ongoing research. View the current speaker list.

Inequality Research Conference: This annual, student-organized conference features ongoing research by the GPD community (including international collaborators) and invited speakers.

Brown Bag Forums: An informal venue for GPD trainees to present dissertation proposals and or preliminary findings from summer research

Research and Fieldwork

The GPD program offers all trainees a range of opportunities to work with Brown faculty, visitors and our collaborating institutions on research projects.

All trainees are encouraged to collaborate with faculty on research projects. Trainees receiving an IGERT fellowship will be partnered with individual or collaborative faculty research project. Trainees are assigned two faculty advisors from the GPD program, including one who is not from the trainees home department. In addition to general advice and mentoring on the assigned research project, advisors also assist trainees in selecting a summer research site.

In order to provide trainees with field-based research experience, GPD facilitates summer research by providing summer funding for individual projects and organizing research opportunities through collaborating institutions. Current collaborating partners include the Brazilian Center for Analysis and Planning (CEBRAP), São Paulo, Brazil; the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, Institute of Population and Labor Economics (IPLE), Beijing, China; the Centre for the Study of Developing Societies (CSDS), New Delhi, India; the Centre for Social Science Research (CSSR), Cape Town, South Africa and the Centro de Estudios Sociológicos, El Colegio de México. Each of these partners can integrate trainees into ongoing research projects on inequality.

GPD fellows are required to spend two summers in the field. In most cases, this will be after their 2nd and 3rd year of graduate training. The first summer of fieldwork can be spent with a partner institution participating in an existing project or conducting individual preliminary research. The second summer can also involve work with a collaborating institute, but in most cases will focus on dissertation research.

Sequencing For Fellows

Training in the GPD program requires more of students than in traditional disciplinary programs. In addition to completing the requirement in their PHD discipline, GPD trainees invest significant effort in moving beyond the domain of their home disciplines to develop multidisciplinary knowledge and skills. Fellowships are designed to provide support for this additional investment. First, with fellowship support for the second and third year, trainees will not work as teaching assistants during this period and will be fully focused on their studies and research. Second, the field work course (to be taken in the second year) is designed to help students develop a dissertation project. Third, the two summers of funded fieldwork directly contribute to developing and launching the dissertation research.

In their third year, trainees will be expected to submit a research proposal at a "brown bag forum". In their fourth year, they will present their research at the annual Inequality Research Conference. The sequencing and composition of the training program will of course vary for each trainee. Because many trainees spend extensive time in the field they will require support beyond the Graduate School 5-year package. In most cases, support for additional years can be secured from external sources. All GPD trainees are encouraged to seek external support and Brown PhD students in the social sciences have an excellent track record of successfully competing for external awards. In some cases, support beyond the 5 year period can be provided by the Graduate School or GPD. The timeline below provides a rough guide to the sequencing of GPD training for fellows.