GEG 100 ONLINE! Cultural Geography Chapter 7

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 Rags and Riches: The Dimensions of Development

READ:

• TEXTBOOK: all [outline]
• ONLINE: Measures of Economic Development

ACTIVITIES:

Items to Hand In:

• Activities 1 and 2: The completed spreadsheets
• Activity 3:
  • Scatter diagram with points recorded for each of 20 countries
  • Questions 3.1–3.4
• Activity 4
  • The completed spreadsheet with alternative development indicators
  • Questions 4.1–4.2.

Estimated Time Requirements

• Activity 1: Economic Model of Development -- 20-30 minutes
• Activity 2: Human Welfare Model of Development -- 20-30 minutes
• Activity 3: Comparing Economic Development and Human Welfare Development Models -- 20-30 minutes
• Activity 4: Alternative Indicators of Development 1-2 hours (in library or on web)

CONCEPTS / VOCABULARY

All "Key terms"

Plus:

GNP - gross national product (or GDP) GNP per capita LDCs MDCs third world second world first world doubling time rule of 70 urbanization infrastructure literacy life expectancy HDI rule of 70 primary activities

secondary activities tertiary activities quaternary activities "Asian Tigers" trickle-down infant industries (p.189) protectionism (p.189) nationalization (p.189) Special Economic Zones (p.190) "shock therapy" (p.190) Grameen Bank (p.192) microloans (p.192) machismo (p.192) mass-variables (p. 207) per-capita variables (p. 207)

INSTRUCTOR'S NOTES and/or ADDITIONS TO TEXT READING

The textbook talks about the growing disparities in wealth and income in the world today. In the figure below we can see that 82.7 % of the world's wealth is owned by the richest 20% of the world's population. the remaining 80% of the world share 17.3 % of the world's wealth.

INSTRUCTOR'S NOTES and/or ADDITIONS TO ACTIVITIES

• From the Instructor's Manual:
  • "Although the procedures are straightforward, it helps to go over the rules for handling ties (give each country the same ranking and skip the next ranking). It is also useful to remind students that larger numbers do not always connote higher levels of development. For example, a higher infant mortality rate implies a lower level of development and should, therefore, receive a lower rank. Encourage students to think about what the measure of development stands for rather than mechanistically assign higher rankings to higher numbers."

    "Activity 4 involves independent research and critical thinking and requires students to apply the procedure learned in Activities 1–3 to their own measures of development. Before doing Activity 4, discuss the pitfalls in choosing inappropriate development variables. We outline the problems of using mass variables and variables unrelated to a country's level of welfare in the book."

• Calculating the AVERAGE (columns "F" and "K" on page 200).
  • In activity 1 the authors assume that students know how to calculate and average. The calculate column "F" you add the two rankings for GDP per capita (column "C") and Non-Agricultural Employment (Column "E") then you divide by 2. You also do this to calculate column "K" -- add columns "H" and "J", and divide by 2.
• Activity 4:
  • Chapter 7, Activity 4: Students have been having a hard time finding data for all twenty countries. the instructions say that you may miss only two, but I will accept more. The important thing is "does the data you select really indicate the level of development?" Read the textbook CAREFULLY. It gives several clues. Also, if your data indicates that Afghanistan or Cambodia are more "developed" than the United States or Canada, then maybe you selected the wrong indicator.
    
    Question 4.1 says " List each of your four variables, how it is measured (if necessary), and where you obtained the data. Give a justification for the choice of each variable as an indicator of development." The JUSTIFICATION is important. Discuss HOW the variable that you selected gives an indication of more or less development. Again, the textbook offers some suggestions.
    
  • Page 207 - This exercise has examined two models of development, each based on different indicators of development. What other indicators can you think of that might measure a country’s success in realizing its full development potential? Think carefully about whether a high value of your variable indicates a high level of development. Remember, for example, that low infant mortality rates and high literacy rates both indicate high development.

    The textbook asks you to go to the library to find other data to use as measures of economic development. we should be able to find all we need online. Here are some possible sources:

    • deBlij/Muller textbook
    • UN Statistics Divisions - Social Indicators
    • World Bank - Data and Maps - this may be the only source you need to complete activity 4. The Data and Maps is an index to many other categories of information, including the following:
      • Maps - sometimes "seeing" the spatial distribution of an indicator of development is easier to assess than just viewing a table of data. You may want to include a map with your activity 4.
      • Country Data
      • GenderStats
      • Data by Topic - an extensive list of development indicators. This may be the place to begin.
    • You can search the internet for others. The list of "web resources" below would be a good place to start.

WEB RESOURCES

• Appropriate Technology: http://www.oneworld.org/itdg/journals/appropriate.html.
• Central Intelligence Agency: http://www.odci.gov/cia/publications/factbook/.
• Program for Appropriate Technology in Health: http://www.path.org/index.htm.
• United Nations. Databases: http://www.un.org/databases/.
• U.S. Agency for International Development: http://www.usaid.gov/about/resources/.
• World Bank. World Development Report: http://www.worldbank.org/wdr/.
• World Bank. World Development Indicators (and Atlas): http://www.worldbank.org/data/wdi/home.html.
• World Health Organization. World Health Report: http://www.who.int/whr/.