International Studies

This course focuses on studying education and training from an international perspective. It examines how global or international developments affect teaching and learning across continents and countries. Educational policies and practices of different countries with regard to specific themes are compared. An overarching framework focused on the complex interplay between economic, political, historical, social, and cultural factors, and how these factors affect national educational policies and practices is used. Topics that can be addressed during the course include cross-cultural perspectives on education; comparison of goals of education across nations; comparisons of educational systems through worldwide studies examining students' academic performance (e.g., PISA, TIMSS, PIRLS); comparison of educational policies with regard to themes such as inclusive education, learning problems, and students with educational disadvantages; the role of the government, non-governmental organizations (NGO's), and public organizations Internationalization of (higher) education. Students conduct an international comparative case study based on policy documents and scientific literature.

This course seeks to understand different International Relations (IR) theories and perspectives related to environmental protection. This course also intends to provide students with substantive knowledge of a variety of environmental protection norms, regimes and geopolitics, including but not limited to the following matters: sustainable development goals, climate change, energy, marine environment.

This course considers the main components of American soft power, the ability of the United States to influence through non-coercive behavior, and how they have evolved over time. Also covered are the current challenges, limitations, and constraints to American soft power. Students consider how the public perceives US leadership and the soft power initiative and actions meant to secure it, and the potential consequences of the Trump presidency on America's soft power capital.

This course is transdisciplinary in its framing and combines various approaches and scholarship from critical security studies, surveillance studies, sociology of technology, data sciences, human rights, and international law. The course develops a reflexive understanding of the main categories at work when using geopolitics, security and securitization, mass surveillance, and privacy rights, by joining different experiences too often fragmented by disciplinary knowledge. It analyzes the scripts they produce in order to build a transdisciplinary understanding reflecting the debates (or lack thereof) concerning digital spaces.

Border officials shoot, detain, deport, and/or deny essential services to millions of migrants annually. In this course, students consider when states have a right to control who enters and remains in their territory, and what rights individuals have to migrate.