Teaching:  In several courses, students participate in service learning which requires at least 20 hours of academically relevant and meaningful service that contributes to learning and provides a need identified by the community.  Students engage in critical reflection of their service experiences via papers and class discussion and relate their community involvement to specific course content.

• Students in Dr. Stephanie Brown’s HDEV 403— The Acquisition of Culture: Socialization in Cross-cultural Perspective collected life histories from residents of an age-segregated housing facility in North Long Beach.

• Students in Dr. Shelley Eriksen’s HDEV 357 –Approaches to Adulthood and Aging worked with several different organizations to complete community projects including a computer class for seniors at the Carmelitos Housing Development, a job fair for residents of North Long Beach (in conjunction with Goodwill Industries), and a reading program for adults and their children participating in the Long Beach Public Libraries, Raising a Reader program.

   

India

The Department of Human Development, together with the CSULB Yadunandan Center for India Studies has been pursuing several collaborations with scholars studying human development in the Indian context. During the summer of 2006, Dr. Stephanie Brown participated in a two-week faculty professional development seminar at the University of Hyderabad in Andhra Pradesh, which has helped her expand her teaching about India in HDEV 360—Cultural Foundations for Human Development. Dr. Brown also helped negotiate a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) with Maharaja Sayajirao University of Borda, which has a well-regarded Department of Human Development and Family Studies. This MOU allows for scholarly exchange between our two departments. Further, during the fall 2007 the department will host Dr. Deepak Kumar Behera, a Fulbright scholar from Sambalpur University in Orissa, India.  Dr. Behera is a professor and chair of the anthropology department.  He is also the Chairman of the International Commission on the Anthropology of Children Youth and Childhood.  He will be teaching a special topics class for the CSULB Department of Human Development called Childhood in Changing Contexts.

   

South Africa

Both Drs. Pamela Roberts and Judith Stevenson have ongoing projects in South Africa.  Dr. Roberts has developed two collaborative efforts in South Africa, both in the beginning stages.

• The first involves establishing a relationship between Human Development students (through the student association) and the Thembani Primary School in Langa, South Africa. Thembani is a well run but overcrowded school in an impoverished area just outside of Cape Town. Administrators have done all they can to enhance the education of their students, including providing a computer lab with internet connections. Because of security concerns however, students at Thembani currently have limited access to the computers and their skills are quite basic. During her visit to Thembani in April of 2007, Dr. Roberts identified several ways CSULB students could help the school including creating a pen pal program between Human Development and Thembani students and raising funds to purchase school uniforms, books, and security measures for the computer lab. Work on this project is slated to begin in Summer of 2008.

• A second program involves taking students to South Africa for a three week intensive summer experience. The first course we plan on offering is HDEV 300I: Death and Dying in the summer of 2008. The majority of the course will be taught in the Cape Town area; students will work with a school based program for orphans and vulnerable children as their fieldwork experience, with field trips to prominent landmarks like Robben Island and District Six. The remainder of the course will take place in the Johannesburg area, taking fieldtrips to The Apartheid Museum, Constitution Hill and other landmarks to better understand the effects of recent South African history on death practices and mortality rates. The class will end with a safari in Kruger Park. 

Dr. Stevenson’s current work in South Africa focuses on a project called GlobaLink, a multimedia, online curriculum resource for critical thinking about globalization and Africa created in the tradition of critical pedagogy, and geared for high school students.  GlobaLink is housed at the Globalization Research Center-Africa, UCLA International Institute.  As the Content Specialist, Dr. Stevenson wrote the basic project descriptions and conceptualized the contested nature of globalization that is central to the curriculum. The project was launched in May of 2006 and Dr. Stevenson is now working on a pilot study where teachers implement the curriculum in South African classrooms. Her future international plans for the project include outreach to Ghana and Ethiopia.  Fulfilling an additional personal goal, Dr. Stevenson is involved in establishing a local partnership with the Tom Bradley Youth and Family Center in Los Angeles to use the curriculum in their after-school program and in Los Angeles classrooms. 

Ecuador and Mexico

Dr. Heather Rae-Espinoza has a longitudinal research project in Ecuador. Dr. Rae-Espinoza addresses the cultural, social, and psychological effects of parental emigration on the children left behind. She conducted fieldwork in schools and with families for three years to study children’s social adjustments and psychological adaptations to parental separation. Her work has entailed collaborations with both international and grassroots nongovernmental organizations along with policymakers. Dr. Rae-Espinoza plans to conduct follow-up research at five-year increments utilizing student researchers and is in the initial stages of planning a HDEV 307I: Approaches to Childhood course in Ecuador.  She has also been engaged in research with migrants in Mexico and throughout Southern California.