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Home > Activities > Committees >Teaching (1999-2001) > Seminar Outline

Seminar on Demographic Training in the Third Millennium

Rabat May 15-18 2001
Organised by the IUSSP Working Group on Teaching

Sessions 1 and 2: Demographic Training: Past and Present

The objective of these two sessions is to present the evolution of training programmes in different parts of the world with an emphasis on the past and the present. For each major region, the presentations should focus on: the initial historical context that generated training programmes and particularly the needs assessments that justified such programmes and the type of demographers needed by society, the changes in training programmes throughout the years (and the reasons for theses changes), and finally an assessment of the present situation.

Presentation of survey results by the Working Group.

Regional perspectives (overviews): Africa, Asia, Latin America and the Caribbean, Middle East, Europe, North America/Australia/New Zealand.

Session 3: Needs/Demands for Demographers in the Future

This session aims at exploring the demand for demographers in the future. The following questions are some examples of aspects that should be considered: How are needs defined? Who should define these needs: employers, former graduates, PUBLIC sector, private sector, international organisations, etc.? What are future directions: applied vs. fundamental, substantive vs. technical, etc.?

Keywords: future labour markets.

Developing world

Industrialised world

Global perspective

Sessions 4 and 5: What Should We Teach? Elements of a Training Strategy

Given the specific needs defined in session 3, sessions 4 and 5 should focus on training programmes. Here, attention should be paid to different types of training profiles (e.g. professional vs. research) and geared to specific target groups such as students in demography, students in other disciplines, non-demographers dealing with population projects, etc. Programmes should also distinguish between short-term and long-term training.

Keywords: substantive and methodological aspects of training; data needs; generalist vs. specialist; conventional vs. emerging fields.

Topics

Family/fertility/nuptiality

Health/morbidity/mortality

Migration/urbanisation/globalisation

Ageing

Gender

Population and development

Emerging fields (e.g., ageing, social, political, biology, dynamics of poverty, environmental issues)

Session 6: New Tools for Teaching

This session should invite contributions presenting specific examples of new tools used in teaching demography: internet, simulation models, problem-solving approaches, etc.

Contributions to this session could be obtained from general submissions to the meeting; other contributors may be drawn from Johns Hopkins or the School of African Studies (LSE).

Keywords: internet, computer-based teaching.

Sessions 7 And 8: Identifying Priorities and Synthesis

This session could entail presentations by the 6 rapporteurs of the earlier sessions (perhaps using Working Group members as rapporteurs), followed by a general discussion. The discussion should deal with target groups (e.g., professionals vs. others, undergraduate vs. graduate level teaching, etc.).