Note: A placement exam will be required when you arrive on site.

Intermediate

This course is designed for students who have completed or tested out of a minimum of two semesters (or three quarters) of college-level Spanish. However, students must take a placement exam to determine the course level into which they will be able to enroll.

Advanced

This course is designed for students who have completed or tested out of a minimum of four semesters (or six quarters) of college-level Spanish. However, students must take a placement exam to determine the course level into which they will be able to enroll.

DESCRIPTION

This is both a theoretical and a practical course oriented toward providing the student personal experiences that allow analysis and comprehension of the reality of institutions and public services, public, private, and mixed; their social, political, and economic orientation and the diverse actors who participate in them.

OBJECTIVES

At the end of the course, the students will be able to:

1. Facilitate the analysis of the institutions in which they carried out their work from the social, political, and economic perspective.
2. Participate in the discussion with respect to the different types of paradigms that serve as a base for service institutions.
3. Facilitate the comprehension and practice of diagnosis and planning as tool of community work
4. Analyze the diversity of sectors of development involved in community work.
5. Identify the bases that sustain community participation and the management of its beneficiaries.
6. Identify the diverse sources of financing involved in sustaining the development of institutions of community service.
7. Synthesize their experience in the presentation of a case study of a community service institution.

CONTENTS

Unit 1: Tools for Community Service

1.1. Participant observation
1.2. Case study
1.3. Diagnostic
1.4. Systematization
1.5 Planning

Unit 2: Community Service in poor countries. Its social, political, and economic implications.

2.1. Governability
2.2. Crisis of governability
2.3. Poverty and inequality
2.4. Exclusion
2.5. Politics and social reform in Latin America

Unit 3: Paradigms of community work

3.1. Assistance
3.2. Paternalism
3.3. Empowerment

Unit 4: Agents involved. The state, non-governmental organizations, and community. Motivations, roles, and limitations.

4.1. Basic criteria: democratization
4.2. Decentralization
4.3. Legalization
4.4. Efficiency-efficacy

Unit 5: Subjects of the work: Base organizations or individuals.

5.1. Social organization, its importance
5.2. Types of social organizations: beginnings and internal structure
5.3. Social organization and local management

Unit 6: The sources of financing in community work: The state, philanthropy, and foreign donations.

6.1. Donor fatigue at the international level
6.2. Historical tendency of social spending
6.3. Structure of public spending

Unit 7: Case study of institutions in Santiago de los Caballeros.

7.1. Education sector
7.2. Health sector
7.3. Judicial sector

EVALUATION:

Participation (Class participation on readings and experiences): 25%
Presentation (Oral pres. of case study): 10%
Presentation (Written presentation of case study): 15%
Practicum (Community practicum): 50%
Total: 100%

BIBLIOGRAPHY:

Brea, R.; Duarte, I. (1999) El Autoritarismo y la Autodiscriminación. Cap. VI. Entre la casa y la Calle. Las mujeres dominicanas y la cultura política a finales del siglo XX. Santo Domingo, República Dominicana: Editorial Búho.

Breslin, Patric. (1991) La democracia en el resto de las Américas. Pág. 3-7 “Desarrollo de Base”. Vol. 15 No. 2. Fundación Interamericana.

Cela, J.; Vargas, T. (1993) Papel de la Sociedad Civil en la Reforma Social y Disminución de la Pobreza. Seminario Políticas de Concertación para la Reforma Social y Disminución de la pobreza. PNUD/PUCMM, Pág. 1-20. Del 23 al 24 de noviembre de 1993. Santo Domingo, RD.

Córdova Cayo, P. (Noviembre 1996) Cuando las mujeres se organizan. De dirigentes a líderes. Cáp. II-III Pág. 33-55. En “Liderazgo Femenino en Lima. Estrategias de supervivencia”. Lima, Perú: Fundación Friedrich Ebert.

González R, E. (1996) Manual sobre participación y organización para la gestión local. Pág. 94-130. Santa Fé de Bogotá. Colombia: Ediciones Foro Nacional por Colombia.

Instituto Cooperativo Interamericano. (1997) El autodiagnóstico y la Planificación Popular. Pág. 5-85, ICI. Panamá.

Pease García, H.; Centro de Estudios y Promoción del Desarrollo- DESCO. (1989). Experiencias de Democracia Local y Organizaciones no Gubernamentales de desarrollo. Cap. VI. En “Democracia Local: Reflexiones y experiencias”. Pág. 97-108. Lima, Perú.

Pérez Serrano, G. (1994. Investigación Cualitativa. Retos e interrogantes. Vol. I Cap. III El Método del Estudio de Casos Aplicaciones Prácticas. Pág. 87-115 . “Investigación Cualitativa. Retos e interrogantes”. Madrid, España: Editorial La Muralla.

Romero Rodríguez, J. (Octubre �" Diciembre 1999) La Cooperación al Desarrollo bajo el síndrome de la fatiga del donante. Pág. 443-373. En “Revista de Fomento Social” No. 216 Vol. 54.

Santana, I. (1993) Gasto Público Social. Seminario “Políticas de Concertación para la Reforma Social y Disminución de la pobreza”. PNUD/PUCMM, Pág. 19-31 Del 23 al 24 de noviembre de 1993. Santo domingo, RD.

Servicio Alemán de Cooperación Social Técnica. (Octubre y diciembre 1988) Asesoramiento Metodológico del DED. Sistematización de experiencias y procesos. Quito / Santo Domingo.