HDFS 5020: Seminar in Culture, Health and Human Development
Wednesdays 4:00-6:30, Rowe 213
Professor Sara Harkness
Are you interested in how the sociocultural environment affects the health and development of individuals? Do you plan to work in research, education, health or human services with people of diverse cultural backgrounds? Will your career or studies take you to other countries or sub-cultures? If so, you should consider enrolling in the spring 2018 graduate seminar in Culture, Health and Human Development (HDFS 5020).
The CHHD seminar introduces students to current interdisciplinary approaches to the study of human development and health in the context of culture. The course has two main parts: 1) An overview of theoretical approaches to the study of these fields as they relate to each other; and 2) Invited presentations on topics that exemplify the interfaces among these three disciplines. The first part of the course will provide an overview of central issues, such as concepts of culture from both anthropology and psychology, ethnography and human development, gene-environment interactions in development, and integrative theoretical models for the study of health and human development in context.
The second part of the course is organized around the CHHD spring colloquium series, which brings a series of speakers from on campus and other universities to talk about their research. Past speakers in the series have included Jerome Kagan (Harvard University) on temperament and child development; Ughetta Moscardino (University of Padua, Italy) on African immigrant mothers and child health; Rafael Perez-Escamilla (UConn) on food security issues and programs in Latin America, CHHD affiliated faculty members Linda Halgunseth on culturally sensitive parenting measures and Lisa Eaton and on sexual risk-taking in South Africa. The most recent (2016) colloquium series featured four of our own distinguished colleagues: Kim Gans (HDFS), Marlene Schwartz (Rudd Center and HDFS), Stephanie Milan (Psychology), and Adam Silverman (Pediatrics) on topics including the design of culturally relevant interventions in communities, using research to advance policy change, mothers’s ideas about raising their teen-age daughters in three ethnic/racial groups, and children’s health in Haiti.
The CHHD seminar is the point of entry for graduate students who wish to obtain a Graduate Certificate in the Culture, Health and Human Development, and it is also a core activity of the associated CHHD Center. Requirements for the course, in addition to regular attendance and participation in class, include preparation of a brief summary of one of the presentations (to be posted on the CHHD website), preparation of a summary and critique of particular readings, and a 12-page research paper related to a topic in culture, health and human development.
The CHHD seminar is only offered every other spring term, so if you are interested, don’t put it off! No permission number is required, but enrollment is limited. For further information, please contact Professor Sara Harkness (Sara.Harkness@UConn.edu).
For more information, contact: Sara Harkness at sara.harkness@uconn.edu