I have taught the following courses at UCLA as a Teaching Associate:
Introduction to Development Studies
As an introductory-level course in developmental studies, this course aims to disentangle the struggles that developing countries face, such as severe poverty, growing inequality, conflict, environmental degradation exacerbated by climate change, and numerous other constraints. It examines the factors behind these challenges. The following questions are discussed in the course: What factors contributed to the “making” of the Global South? What is the role and function of key institutions and actors, such as international governments, governments, and NGOs, in the development process? What are the implications of development policies? How are current trends and forces, such as globalization, urbanization, migration, and climate change, shaping contemporary development issues? How do these disparities manifest within the countries of the Global North, like the United States? Works from Seers, Collier, Sen, and De Soto are discussed in this course. Through an interdisciplinary lens, this course offers students the opportunity to study, analyze, and critically assess the social, political, and economic forces that have shaped inequality in the modern world.
Globalization, culture and Society
Adopting a cultural anthropology perspective, this course aims to help students rethink globalization through culture—people’s everyday lives, behaviors, beliefs, and institutions. How do people in an interconnected world make meaning as we live, work, play, and interact with each other, both as individuals and as intersectional communities, nations, religions, ethnicities, races, genders, and sexualities? How do we understand the relationship between people and the larger structures of power within which we live? Various themes are discussed in this course, including colonialism, race and racism, migration, media and technology, commodity chains, and identities. This course aims to help students reconsider the relationship between the local and the global, deterritorialization and reterritorialization, and therefore think critically and creatively about our interconnected, unequal world.
Research Methodology in Psychology
This course aims to introduce students to conceptual frameworks and the applied skills needed to conduct research in psychology. One goal of the course is to enable students to compare and contrast various research methods, discriminate between experimental, quasi-experimental, and non-experimental studies, and develop scientific literacy skills to become more educated, critical consumers of research. In the lab section, various research designs are introduced to students, including correlational design, simple experimental design, and factorial design. Throughout the course, students learn to design a study to test a research question, evaluate the validity of research, and communicate the critical aspects of a research study in a manner appropriate for scientific writing and reporting via a presentation.
Introductory Sociology
This course provides an introduction to the major theoretical explanations used by sociologists to make sense of the social world around us. An emphasis will be placed on developing students’ sociological imagination, that is, the ability to see how individual lives are affected by the broader historical and social context. Students will be introduced to classic and contemporary sociological theories, as well as the research methods most commonly used by sociologists. They will also be introduced to key findings from research conducted by sociologists working in the areas of social stratification, markets and organizations, urban sociology, race and ethnicity, gender and sexuality, education, and demography, among others.
Yiping Wang 