Fall 2005 Course Description
Advanced Topics in Public Policy
| Section Title: |
Social Policy Evaluation: Brazil Program |
| Instructor(s): |
Chandler Stolp |
| Course: |
P A 388K - Advanced Topics in Public Policy
(previously Seminar in Topics in Public Policy) |
| Unique Number: |
64080 |
| Day & Time: |
Fridays, 9:00 AM - 12:00 PM |
| Room: |
SRH 3.102 |
| Waitlist Information: | For LBJ Students: UT Waitlist Information
For Non LBJ Students: LBJ School Waitlist Instructions |
This course fulfills requirements for the following specialization(s):
Description: Overview: This special offering is part of a multi-year project that the University of Texas is carrying out under an agreement with the Brazilian government to train a select group of mid-level public policy analysts in research methods for evaluating social programs. LBJ students and Latin American Studies students who have completed AQA II or its equivalent are welcome to enroll with the instructor's permission. Students working on professional reports related to the evaluation of social policies in Latin America are especially encouraged to consider this course. A command of the Portuguese language is highly desirable, reading skills in Portuguese acceptable. Students who are new to Portuguese are required, at the very minimum, to be proficient in written and spoken Spanish.
Due to the special nature of this international collaboration, LBJ/LLILAS enrollment will be limited to eight students.
Objective: The objective of the course is to develop skills in the use of census, survey, and othe large databases to analyze both the need for and the impact of policy initiatives in education, health, workforce training, and other areas of social welfare. The focus will be on Latin American data and applications, but participants will also review the best practices in the United States and the rest of the world. Students will carry out individual or joint projects involving the analysis of one or more large data sets of their own choosing that relate to a specific social policy question.
Participants will be introduced to and gain familiarity with statistical packages such as SAS, SPSS, and Stata. In this regard, they will have access to advice concerning programming questions and strategies from the Data Services Core of the Population Research Center (PRC). Students will also have access to the PRC's impressive collection of data sets from Brazil and other Latin American countries.
Evaluation of student performance will be based on: (1) participation in class discussions (20%); (2) several homework exercises (20%); (3) a term paper due at the end of the semester (50%); and, (4) a class presentation of the term paper (10%).
Return to Fall 2005 Course Schedule
