Excellent education prize!

The course introduces a number of key concepts in political sociology and anthropology to challenge common-sense understandings of the world and of international development, allowing for a deeper study of conflict, competing interests and power dynamics. This second-year bachelor course of International Development is the first obligatory one for students deciding to specialize in sociology.

Co-ordinated by Jessica Duncan of RSO and co-taught by Lerato Takholi —replacing Lotje de Vries who was on maternity leave—the 2019-2020 edition had to start the day after the lockdown was announced and swiftly had to be transformed into an online edition. Below is the jury report:

"RSO21306 (Political Sociology for Development). The course content is about development settings that are important for Wageningen students, getting prepared for all kinds of confrontations with knowledge resulting from this course. A variety of teaching methods is used with active participation of students and interaction with both teachers and fellow students, despite the fact that it had to be online. Students report about obtaining new knowledge and learning to think critically in a comfortable  and safe online environment; teachers really cared about the mental health of the students in the beginning of the covid crisis. Due to different types of learning methods, group work and the use of polls students kept engaged during long lectures. The teachers were also open to altering their course during the period, taking into account feedback from students, in order to make it the best possible version of the course. They decided not to use proctoring but to go for an essay, open book exam, which was also positively evaluated." 

Our very warm congratulations to Jessica, Lerato and Lotje for such a great achievement!