Project Profile
An Integrated Program on Development and Inequality in the Global South
Brown University
Abstract
This Integrative Graduate Education and Research Traineeship (IGERT) project supports interdisciplinary training for doctoral students in anthropology, economics, political science, and sociology at Brown University to study development and inequality in the global south. Scholars and policymakers have become increasingly concerned about the causes and consequences of economic, social, and… more »
This Integrative Graduate Education and Research Traineeship (IGERT) project supports interdisciplinary training for doctoral students in anthropology, economics, political science, and sociology at Brown University to study development and inequality in the global south. Scholars and policymakers have become increasingly concerned about the causes and consequences of economic, social, and political inequality. While a large amount of research has been devoted to the topic in the United States and Europe, much less progress has been made in developing countries – where the problems are much more severe. To help deal with this issue, the IGERT project combines advanced measurement and analytical techniques with grounded understanding of local contexts in the developing world within a framework that integrates faculty, graduate students, and international collaborators.
On campus, training will include interdisciplinary course requirements, participation in research community activities, and active faculty mentoring. Students will also spend two summers in a developing country, the first as apprentices in an ongoing faculty project, and the second as independent researchers collecting data for their dissertations. Broader impacts will be of several types. First, an innovative training program will be developed. Second, new data will be collected and new analytical approaches designed for understanding and mitigating inequality in the developing world; the findings will be widely disseminated both to academics and policy-makers. Third, the scholarly community will be strengthened. In the United States, underrepresented groups will be incorporated into the project; in the developing world, ties with collaborating institutions will be institutionalized and the capacity of their younger researchers will be increased.
IGERT is an NSF-wide program intended to meet the challenges of educating U.S. Ph.D. scientists and engineers with the interdisciplinary background, deep knowledge in a chosen discipline, and the technical, professional, and personal skills needed for the career demands of the future. The program is intended to catalyze a cultural change in graduate education by establishing innovative new models for graduate education and training in a fertile environment for collaborative research that transcends traditional disciplinary boundaries. « less
Contributions[?]
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