International Development BA (Hons)

Modules

• Year 1 at Sussex

  Your modules

  Core modules

  Core modules are taken by all students on the course. They give you a solid grounding in your chosen subject and prepare you to explore the topics that interest you most.

  Autumn teaching

  • Colonialism and its Afterlives
  • Engaging with development at Sussex
  • Global Challenges and Innovations

  Spring teaching

  • Aid and Development Cooperation
  • Development Policies and Politics
  • Key Thinkers and Doers in Development

  Your degree

  In you first year, you’ll:

  • learn about the basic structures and ideas behind international development interventions
  • explore placing contemporary development within the broader history of colonialism and globalisation
  • be introduced to some of the world-leading research being done at Sussex, finding solutions to the world’s most pressing issues.

  Alongside your core modules, you’ll gain practical and study skills. We’ll encourage you to engage with your studies as well as contemporary, real-world issues.

  Teaching

  Teaching methods typically include a range of lectures, seminars, small classes and tutorials.

  

  50%: Lecture
  40%: Seminar
  10%: One-to-one

  Assessment

  Assessment methods typically include essays, policy briefs and reports.

  Contact hours and workload

  This year of study includes approximately 1,200 hours of work. This breaks down into about 180 hours of contact time and about 1,020 hours of independent study.

  Engage and actively participate throughout your studies to get the most out of your course.

• Year 2 at Sussex

  Your modules

  Core modules

  Core modules are taken by all students on the course. They give you a solid grounding in your chosen subject and prepare you to explore the topics that interest you most.

  Autumn teaching

  • Critical Approaches to Development Economics
  • Research Skills for Development
  • Social Justice and Development

  Options

  Alongside your core modules, you can choose options to broaden your horizons and tailor your course to your interests. This list gives you a flavour of our options, which are kept under review and may change, for example in response to student feedback or the latest research.

  While it’s our aim for students to take their preferred combinations of options, this can’t be guaranteed and will be subject to timetabling. Options may be grouped and if so, students will be able to choose a set number of options from the selection available in any particular group.

  Spring teaching

  • Development and the State
  • Environmental Perspectives on Development
  • Gender, Race and Sexuality
  • Health, Poverty and Inequality
  • International Education and Development
  • Practitioner and Activist Skills for Global Justice

  Your degree

  In your second year you’ll:

  • build on your knowledge to explore development issues in greater, critical detail
  • explore the value of different disciplinary perspectives for understanding global problems covering anthropological, geographical, economic and political approaches
  • have the opportunity to analyse development approaches and policy positions, and challenge them from the perspective of economic and social justice
  • develop critical practitioner and activist skills. 

  Year 2 is also where you’ll start to find your areas of interest, tailoring your modules to the topics that you care about most.

  Teaching

  Teaching methods typically include lectures and seminars with some tutorial time. Field trips are a feature of some of our options.

  

  40%: Lecture
  40%: Seminar
  10%: Practical
  10%: One-to-one

  Assessment

  Assessment methods typically include essays and learning diaries, as well as writing blogs and reports, and presenting group project work activities.

  Contact hours and workload

  This year of study includes approximately 1,200 hours of work. This breaks down into about 220 hours of contact time and about 980 hours of independent study.

  Engage and actively participate throughout your studies to get the most out of your course.

• Experience Year

  Study abroad (optional)

  Apply to study abroad – you’ll develop an international perspective and gain an edge when it comes to your career.

  If your application to study abroad is successful, you’ll have to meet the academic requirements at Sussex and also at the partner university. Find out more about studying abroad as a Sussex student

  Placement (optional)

  To help you gain experience and increase your employability, you can apply for an optional placement as part of your course. You’ll be responsible for applying for and securing your placement. Our dedicated careers team can provide you with information and advice. If you’re successful in obtaining a placement, this will form part of your course.

  Find out more about placements and internships

  I’m really glad I did the placement. I met great people and I got the chance to see my work published.”Hannah Clifton
  Computing for International Development BA
  Sightsavers

  Please note that if you’re receiving – or applying for – USA federal Direct Loan funds, you can’t transfer to the version of your course with an optional study abroad period in any country or optional placement in the USA if the number of credits for the placement/internship exceeds 25% of the total credits for your course. Find out more about American Student Loans and Federal Student Aid

• Year 3 at Sussex

  Your modules

  Options

  You choose options to broaden your horizons and tailor your course to your interests. This list gives you a flavour of our options, which are kept under review and may change, for example in response to student feedback or the latest research.

  While it’s our aim for students to take their preferred combinations of options, this can’t be guaranteed and will be subject to timetabling. Options may be grouped and if so, students will be able to choose a set number of options from the selection available in any particular group.

  Autumn and spring teaching

  • International Development Thesis

  Autumn teaching

  • Advanced Sustainable Development: Sustainability in Policy and Practice
  • Decolonial Movements
  • Disasters, Environment and Development
  • Environment and Development in World Politics
  • Geographies of Money, Finance, and Debt
  • Global Work Experience
  • Mobilities and Global Inequalities
  • Slavery, Emancipation and Legacies
  • The Politics of Armed Groups: Rebels, State and Society
  • Visualising War: Image, Media, and Culture

  Spring teaching

  • Critical Hope in Global Health: From Big Pharma to Local Wellbeing
  • Critical Perspectives on Conflict and Violence
  • Development Tools and Skills
  • Development, Business and Corporate Social Responsibility
  • Global Food Security
  • Global Supply Chains: Making an (un)sustainable world?
  • Humanitarianism in Theory and Practice
  • Political Ecology and Environmental Justice
  • Race, Ethnicity and Identity
  • Violence, militarism & (anti)colonialism: Transnational feminist and queer perspectives

  Your degree

  In your final year you’ll focus on the issues and ideas that matter most to you. Choosing from a range of options that draw on the research strengths of our individual faculty, you’ll use your knowledge to engage in the most pressing issues of our time.

  If you choose to do a final-year thesis, you’ll develop your own independent research project on a topic you’re passionate about. You’ll be supported through one-to-one supervision. You’ll also have the opportunity to gain employability skills, combining in-class workshops with a placement in a professional environment.

  Teaching

  Teaching methods typically include small-group, immersive and interactive workshops; one-to-one tutorials during which staff and students discuss specialist topics; and other activities including field trips, lectures and project work.

  

  80%: Practical
  20%: One-to-one

  Assessment

  Assessment methods typically include group, project and policy work, as well as essays and dissertations. The optional final-year thesis can include fieldwork or other kinds of self-directed research.

  Contact hours and workload

  This year of study includes approximately 1,200 hours of work. This breaks down into about 140 hours of contact time and about 1,060 hours of independent study.

  Engage and actively participate throughout your studies to get the most out of your course.

Customise your course

• Progressive Futures electives

  Year 1

  Autumn teaching

  • Digital and Data Futures
  • Environmental Sustainability
  • Human Flourishing

  Spring teaching

  • (Re)Imagining Future Worlds through Humour and Play
  • Adapting Literature
  • American Political Culture
  • Art and Artists
  • Black British History
  • Climate Justice: Policy & Activism in a Time of Global Crisis
  • Gender Across Cultures
  • Gendering the Life Course
  • Global Cultures, Local Lives
  • Global Issues
  • Global Migration in a Digital Age
  • Inclusive Practice with Young People
  • Introduction to Human Rights
  • Introduction to the European Union
  • Leading Social Change: Communication and Activism
  • Mental Health and Madness: exploring socio-cultural approaches
  • Music and Society
  • People, Culture and the Global Economy
  • Principles of Cognitive Science
  • Psychology Now: Contemporary Approaches to Understanding Behaviour
  • Society, State and Humanity
  • The Age of Adolescence: Reading 20th Century Youth Culture
  • The Look of America
  • The Meaning of Life
  • Understanding the Criminal Justice System

  Year 2

  Autumn teaching

  • Access, Equity and Gender
  • Analysing Film (E)
  • Artificial Intelligence and the Future of Law
  • Biological Psychology
  • Business in World Politics
  • Crime and Criminal Justice
  • Decoding Cultures of Technology and Social Change
  • Feminist Philosophy
  • Forest Food Gardens: The Theory and Practice of Food Growing
  • Global News Cultures
  • Inclusion, Diversity and Equity in Education
  • Inter-cultural Encounters
  • Landscapes of Resistance and Social Justice
  • Leading Social Change: Taking Action
  • Migration, Identity and Rights
  • Police and Policing (Elective)
  • Political and Social Change in Contemporary Europe
  • Race and Ethnicity in US History
  • Sleep and Mental Health
  • Sustainability and Climate Justice
  • Video Games: Creative & Critical Writing

  Spring teaching

  • Activist Skills for Global Justice and Sustainable Futures
  • Advertising (E)
  • American City
  • Autism and Education
  • Clinical Psychology and Mental Health
  • Contemporary Issues in Law
  • Creative Coding
  • Creative Production in the Arts
  • Decolonising Education: Knowledge, Power and Sustainable Societies
  • Digital Law Toolkit
  • Education, Peacebuilding and Conflict
  • Everyday Digital: Generation, Life-Course and Expertise
  • Exploring Death and Dying; Cultural, Theoretical and Practice Perspectives
  • Exploring Teaching in Schools
  • Forest Food Gardens: Communities, Ecologies and Collaboration
  • Language, Identity and Nation
  • Language, Mind and Brain
  • Making Sense of Complexity: Tools for Addressing Real World Sustainability Challenges
  • Philosophy of Race
  • Psychology of Cognitive Processes
  • Punishment and Penology
  • The Far Right and the Politics of Immigration
  • The Liberal World Order - in Crisis
• Languages and TESOL electives

  You can choose to study language electives for two or three years. This allows you to add the language to the title of your degree:

  • if you study a language for two years, you could graduate with a title such as Psychology with proficiency in Japanese BSc (Hons)
  • if you study a language for three years, you could graduate with a title such as Psychology with Japanese BSc (Hons).

  Year 1

  Autumn teaching

  • Arabic Beginners A
  • Arabic Intermediate A
  • British Sign Language and Deaf Culture 1A
  • British Sign Language and Deaf Culture 2A
  • Chinese Beginners A
  • Chinese Intermediate A
  • French Beginners A
  • French For Professional Purposes 1A
  • French Intermediate A
  • German Beginners A
  • German Intermediate A
  • Introduction to TESOL - Theory and Methodology 1
  • Italian Beginners A
  • Italian Intermediate A
  • Japanese Beginners A
  • Japanese Intermediate A
  • Spanish Beginners A
  • Spanish for Professional Purposes 1A
  • Spanish Intermediate A

  Spring teaching

  • Arabic Beginners B
  • Arabic Intermediate B
  • Arabic Intermediate B
  • British Sign Language and Deaf Culture 1B
  • British Sign Language and Deaf Culture 2B
  • Chinese Beginners B
  • Chinese Intermediate B
  • French Beginners B
  • French For Professional Purposes 1B
  • French Intermediate B
  • German Beginners B
  • German Intermediate B
  • Italian Beginners B
  • Italian Intermediate B
  • Japanese Beginners B
  • Japanese Intermediate B
  • Spanish Beginners B
  • Spanish for Professional Purposes 1B
  • Spanish Intermediate B
  • TESOL Teaching Practice 1

  Year 2

  Autumn teaching

  • Arabic Advanced A
  • Arabic Beginners A
  • Arabic Intermediate A
  • British Sign Language and Deaf Culture 1A
  • British Sign Language and Deaf Culture 2A
  • British Sign Language and Deaf Culture 3A
  • Chinese Advanced A
  • Chinese Beginners A
  • Chinese Intermediate A
  • French Advanced A
  • French Beginners A
  • French For Professional Purposes 1A
  • French for Professional Purposes 2A
  • French Intermediate A
  • German Advanced A
  • German Beginners A
  • German Intermediate A
  • Introduction to TESOL - Theory and Methodology 1
  • Italian Advanced A
  • Italian Beginners A
  • Italian Intermediate A
  • Japanese Advanced A
  • Japanese Beginners A
  • Japanese Intermediate A
  • Spanish Advanced A
  • Spanish Beginners A
  • Spanish for Professional Purposes 1A
  • Spanish for Professional Purposes 2A
  • Spanish Intermediate A
  • TESOL Theory and Methodology 2

  Spring teaching

  • Arabic Advanced B
  • Arabic Beginners B
  • Arabic Intermediate B
  • Arabic Intermediate B
  • British Sign Language and Deaf Culture 1B
  • British Sign Language and Deaf Culture 2B
  • British Sign Language and Deaf Culture 3B
  • Chinese Advanced B
  • Chinese Beginners B
  • Chinese Intermediate B
  • French Advanced B
  • French Beginners B
  • French For Professional Purposes 1B
  • French for Professional Purposes 2B
  • French Intermediate B
  • German Advanced B
  • German Beginners B
  • German Intermediate B
  • Italian Advanced B
  • Italian Beginners B
  • Italian Intermediate B
  • Japanese Advanced B
  • Japanese Beginners B
  • Japanese Intermediate B
  • Spanish Advanced B
  • Spanish Beginners B
  • Spanish for Professional Purposes 1B
  • Spanish for Professional Purposes 2B
  • Spanish Intermediate B
  • TESOL Teaching Practice 1
  • TESOL Teaching Practice 2

These electives are designed to help you explore key global challenges with world-leading experts from across the University and beyond.

Whichever path you take, you’ll develop key skills to tackle the complexity of contemporary challenges. This will help improve your employment prospects and help you contribute to creating progressive futures for all.

We regularly review our modules to incorporate student feedback, staff expertise, as well as the latest research and teaching methodology. We’re planning to run these modules in the academic year 2026/27. However, there may be changes to these modules in response to feedback, staff availability, student demand or updates to our curriculum. We’ll make sure to let you know of any material changes to modules at the earliest opportunity.

We’ll do our best to provide as much optional choice as we can, but timetabling constraints mean it may not be possible to take some module combinations. The structure of a small number of courses means that the order of modules or the streams you choose may determine whether modules are core or optional. This means that your core modules or options may differ from what’s shown here.