10 ECTS credits
250 h study time
Offer 1 with catalog number 4019901FNR for all students in the 2nd semester at a (F) Master - specialised level.
Course description
The general aim of this course is to explore the local governance system with a special analysis of the provision of essential public goods in relation to three aspects:
-The residential practices: considering the housing patterns, household dynamics and social housing provision with the uses and transformations of public spaces.
-The access and use of local services: analyzing the specific characteristics of the local services in relation with the different social spaces in the city, taking into account their relation with the cultural and economic diversities of these spaces; considering the local services both from the supply and the demand sides, and the characteristics of the inhabitants of these spaces. Special attention is given to the question of the proximity and the distance of the services in relation to its impact in the local welfare.
-The urban governance: all these topics are approached taking into account from one side the perspective of the inhabitants of specific areas, and from the other the dynamics of their neighborhoods. It will consider the diversity of the inhabitants in terms of its social and economic position, age, gender, ethnic or national conditions and other criteria relevant in each case, such as the type of household in which they live. The course also examines the structure of local power in different European countries and the system of decisions in the context of the current multiscale distribution of competencies. It will devote special attention to the citizens’ participation and the different ways of its organization, as well as the formation and dynamics of the local social movements.
The course will also consider the production and change of the local welfare and the power struggles, the political options and cultural disputes. All these processes are analyzed combining the quantitative with the qualitative research.
Content outline and Student’s workload
The course is divided into two different parts the first one will be about governance and second will be devoted to housing and social services production and access. It will be composed by 10 lectures of 2 hours :
1. Introduction. Different theoretical approaches to the local governance.
2. Explaining the regulation theory and its practical appliance.
3 Explaining the principal indicators of the governance: like efficiency and accountability.
4. Citizen participation in local decisions: theory and practice.
5 Introduction to theories about public intervention in provision of essential services .
6 Household cycle and the evolution of housing needs.
7 Housing policies and social housing provision in European countries.
8 Housing policies in Europe: explaining the different models.
9 Local policies and provision of public services in European cities.
10 Location and access to health services, education, cultural activities and leisure.
|
| Nº of hours | % | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Classroom based | Theory teaching20 hours | 20 | 50% | |
| Classroom based practical exercises, conferences and field-work visit | 42 | |||
| Classroom based compulsory tutorials | 4 | |||
| Seminars | 6 | |||
| Non-classroom based | Non-classroom based student work | 60 | 50% | |
| Total hours of work for the student: 12 hours x 10 ECTS | 120 h>15O |
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Bibliography
Students are provided with a long list of references that are the main ones upon which this course has been constructed. Some of them will be compulsory to read. There will be a minimum number of readings for each theme of the program.
METHODS
-Lectures and class discussions.
-Conferences of the specialists in the fields.
-Reading provided texts.
-Visits to institutions and to a town hall of a medium city.
-Analysing statistics and implementing the precise methods to evaluate the efficiency of the local governance and the provision and use of social services.
-Conducting qualitative research (fieldwork, interviews).
AIMS AND OBJECTIVES
The main aim of the course is to enrich the student´s analysis of the city and its capacity to plan the distribution of the social services, the way in which they are produced and to analyse its impact on daily life of people, considering also the ways of the local decision system and its organization in relation to the satisfaction of the social needs of the population.
It is also intended that the students become an active part of the learning process by:
The final grade is composed based on the following categories:
Other Exam determines 100% of the final mark.
Within the Other Exam category, the following assignments need to be completed:
Evaluation MODALITIES
Students will produce two types of papers. First, an individual essay where there is an explanation of the theme taking into account the readings, theoretical classes and other activities. Second a collective assignment work made by teams. Students get an individualized feedback on their paper for further discussion during the (oral) exam. Evaluation criteria for the papers include: clarity of the central question and general structure of the paper, readability of the text and precision of the vocabulary, depth of the developed arguments and comments on literature, references of figures and sources
The final marks weighted as follows: participation in class 1/3, individual work 1/3, collective work 1/3.
This offer is part of the following study plans:
Master of Urban Studies: 4CITIES Classical track