Module manager: Ajay Bhave
Email: a.g.bhave@leeds.ac.uk
Taught: Semester 1 (Sep to Jan) View Timetable
Year running 2025/26
SOEE5483M – Critical Perspectives in Environment and Development
This module is not approved as an Elective
The purpose of this module is for students to engage in critical reflections on various understandings of interlinked social-ecological systems through real-world case studies within the environment and development field. Students will understand and analyse complex interlinkages between environment and development issues through different perspectives including systems thinking, and analysis of power, claims, and narratives. The module draws on significant international expertise within the Sustainability Research Institute to cover topical issues such as urban systems, water management, agriculture and food, and climate change adaptation.
1. To engage students to critically reflect on complex linkages across a range of environment and development issues.
2. To familiarise students with key concepts, approaches, and critiques of systems thinking in environment and development.
3. To expose students to diverse ways of making claims and building narratives about environmental change in the context of development processes.
4. To facilitate a deeper exploration of diverse perspectives and knowledges for supporting students’ study of complex environmental and development issues.
On successful completion of the module students will have demonstrated the following learning outcomes relevant to the subject:
SSLO1: Critically analyse the process of identifying and examining complex social, economic, and environmental linkages in environment and development.
SSLO2: Evaluate the utility, limitation, and applicability of systems thinking for environment and development contexts.
SSLO3: Analyse hierarchies of power and knowledge-making in an environment and development context.
SSLO4: Critically analyse a specific environment-development issue using appropriate approaches and the relevant evidence, processes, outputs, and trade-offs.
Skills Learning Outcomes
On successful completion of the module students will have demonstrated the following skills learning outcomes:
SKLO1: Critical thinking (Academic skill): weigh up different arguments and perspectives, using supporting evidence to form opinions, arguments, theories and ideas.
SKLO2: Digital Skills – Digital creation, problem-solving and innovation (Digital skill); use digital technology and techniques to create accessible digital items (such as images, documents and mind maps), and the willingness to engage with new practices and perspectives to solve problems, make decisions and answer questions.
SKLO3: Anticipatory and future thinking (Sustainability Skill): Understands and evaluates multiple potential outcomes; their own visions for the future; and considers the precautionary principle.
SKLO4: Systems thinking (Sustainability Skill): Recognises and understands how parts of a system work together: analyses complex systems (environmental, economic and social systems and interdependencies across these); considers how systems are embedded within different domains and scales; deals with uncertainty; uses analytical thinking.
SKLO5: Information searching (Sustainability Skill): Search for, evaluate and use appropriate and relevant information sources to help strengthen the quality of academic work and self-directed research.
Details of the syllabus will be provided on the Minerva organisation (or equivalent) for the module.
| Delivery type | Number | Length hours | Student hours |
|---|---|---|---|
| Lecture | 10 | 2 | 20 |
| Private study hours | 130 | ||
| Total Contact hours | 20 | ||
| Total hours (100hr per 10 credits) | 150 | ||
Group presentation: A recorded presentation. All groups will develop a systems diagram, evidence base and a critical reflections piece for a given case study. Feedback on the formative assessment and peer-peer learning will help student understand the process of information searching, compiling evidence, and critically reflecting on the process of identifying complex environment-development linkages and developing a systems map based on available evidence.
There will also be oral feedback within discussion in class sessions.
| Assessment type | Notes | % of formal assessment |
|---|---|---|
| Coursework | Coursework | 100 |
| Total percentage (Assessment Coursework) | 100 | |
Normally resits will be assessed by the same methodology as the first attempt, unless otherwise stated
The reading list is available from the Library website
Last updated: 29/04/2025
Errors, omissions, failed links etc should be notified to the Catalogue Team