Steady encouragement

After each new topic is presented, students answer a few questions about the main ideas. This keeps students focused, actively processing the information, and constructing new knowledge.

Presentation and exploration

Each chapter offers concise presentation of key concepts. Additional investigations guide students through the examination of real-world artifacts and case studies to put the concepts into context and test the limits of the ideas presented.

Study questions

Questions throughout the text encourage close reading and guide students to key information.

Everything you need

Understanding Development provides everything you need for an online course including the text, interactive investigations, lecture slides, a test bank, and an analytics dashboard. And we can tailor the webtext to match your program’s emphasis, term length, student expectations, and assignment types.

1. The Other Half
   1. Introduction
   2. What Makes a Country “Developing”?
   3. Timeline of Aid
   4. Living on One: We Need a Job
   5. Purchasing Power Parity
   6. The End of Poverty: Where Are the Poor?
   7. Organization Spotlight: The United Nations
   8. Writing Tips: Thesis and Sources
2. International Finance
   1. Introduction
   2. Meet the IMF and the World Bank
   3. What Keeps Countries Poor?
   4. Turnaround: Miss Mama
   5. Turnaround: Policy Matters
   6. Turnaround: Bargaining in Bridgetown
   7. Subsidies
   8. Organization Spotlight: The EBRD
   9. Writing Tips: Outline and Argument
3. War and Peace
   1. Introduction
   2. The Ghost City
   3. Breaking the Conflict Trap: Cry Havoc: Why Civil War Matters
   4. Breaking the Conflict Trap: Civil War as Development in Reverse
   5. Breaking the Conflict Trap: What Makes a Country Prone to Civil War?
   6. Breaking the Conflict Trap: The Conflict Trap
   7. Organization Spotlight: Doctors Without Borders
   8. Writing Tips: Citations and Evidence
4. Institutions
   1. Introduction
   2. World Factbook: Zimbabwe
   3. Why Nations Fail: Zimbabwe
   4. World Factbook: Sierra Leone
   5. Why Nations Fail: Sierra Leone
   6. World Factbook: Colombia
   7. Why Nations Fail: Colombia
   8. World Factbook: North Korea
   9. Why Nations Fail: North Korea
   10. Why Nations Fail
   11. Organization Spotlight: Freedom House
5. Growing Cities
   1. Introduction
   2. Welcome to Lagos
   3. Shadow Cities: Rio de Janeiro
   4. Shadow Cities: Asfaltização
   5. Shadow Cities: Favelas
   6. Organization Spotlight: SPIN Rocinha
6. Education
   1. Introduction
   2. A Small Act
   3. Living on One: (Not) Going to School
   4. World Factbook: India
   5. Poor Economics: Top of the Class
   6. World Factbook: Mexico and Malawi
   7. Poor Economics: The Demand Wallahs' Case
   8. World Factbook: Indonesia
   9. Poor Economics: Does Top-Down Education Policy Work?
   10. Gapminder: Literacy and Income
   11. Gapminder: Education and Fertility
   12. Gapminder: Schooling and Quality of Life
   13. World Factbook: Madagascar
   14. Poor Economics: The Curse of Expectations
   15. World Factbook: Kenya
   16. Poor Economics: Why Schools Fail
   17. Organization Spotlight: Pratham
7. Health
   1. Introduction
   2. Poor Economics: Low-Hanging Fruit for Better (Global) Health?
   3. Poor Economics: Why Aren’t These Technologies Used More?
   4. Living on One: Water From a Pipe?
   5. Poor Economics: Understanding Health-Seeking Behavior
   6. Poor Economics: The View from Our Couch
   7. New Insights on Poverty
   8. Organization Spotlight: The Gates Foundation
8. The Trouble with Aid
   1. Introduction
   2. To Hell with Good Intentions
   3. The Peace Corps
   4. No More Aid to Africa
   5. When NGOs Fail
   6. Organization Spotlight: charity: water
   7. U.N. Says Lag in Confronting Climate Woes Will Be Costly
   8. The Fight Against Eco-Imperialism
9. What Does Success Look Like?
   1. Introduction
   2. Chile Moves On
   3. Living on One: Extreme Budgeting
   4. The End of Poverty: Malawi
   5. The End of Poverty: Bangladesh
   6. The End of Poverty: India and China
   7. The End of Poverty: The Challenge
   8. Rwanda Rising: Introduction
   9. Rwanda Rising: A New Model of Economic Development
   10. Rwanda Rising: Can It Last?
   11. Organization Spotlight: Grameen Bank
10. Next Steps
    1. Introduction
    2. The MDGs: Introduction
    3. The MDGs: Regions
    4. The MDGs: Hunger and Education
    5. Hunger: Operation Free Lunch
    6. Hunger: The Left-Behind Kids
    7. The MDGs: Empowering Women
    8. Transforming Women
    9. Entrepreneurs: ReadySet
    10. Entrepreneurs: Annette
    11. Organization Spotlight: Acumen

Interactive content

Study questions

Short answer and multiple-choice questions on every page guide students to critical information by providing immediate feedback. These low-risk opportunities allow students to reset answers to try again or study for tests.

Response boards

Students engage each other through discussion boards that only allow students to see the responses of their peers after they’ve posted their own comment.

Polls

Polls allow students to share their opinions and render a live pie chart displaying the responses of all class members.

Study tools

Webtext Reader app

Students can access materials and complete assignments offline with our mobile app available for iOS and Android.

Reading tools

Reading tools allow students to hover over vocabulary terms for definitions and mark up their own webtext by highlighting and adding margin notes.

Read to Me

Text-to-speech feature instantly creates an audio version of the webtext page to extend the reach of online content.

My Progress

Students can keep track of their own work inside My Progress, which records their scores, time spent, and completion.

The following materials are available for this course:

• Testbank
• Lecture Slides
• Release Notes
  

Publisher

David Lindrum

Executive Editor

Mary Jane Lindrum

Development Editor

Adam Rosen

Assistant Editor

Daniel Sellers

User Interface Design

Clint McFarlin

Image Curators

Zara Elizabeth Crockett
Tim Jones

Permissions Manager

Zara Elizabeth Crockett

Software Developers

David Perkowski
Matt Bennink
Carter Sowers

Advisor

John Cronin, PhD
Strayer University

Peer Reviewers

J.D. Bowen, PhD
Saint Louis University

Iva Bozovic, PhD
University of Southern California

Brian Dill, PhD
University of Illinois