Topic: Indicators of socio‑economic development

Target group

Second‑grade student of high school and technical school

Core curriculum

VII. Political division and diversification of the level of socio‑economic development of the world: map of political division, colonial system and its disintegration, integration and disintegration processes in the world, armed conflicts and terrorism, basic development indicators.

7). analyzes the spatial diversity of countries in the world according to development indicators - GDP per capita, Social Development Index (HDI), Social Poverty Index (HPI)

8). compares the structure of GDP of countries at different levels of economic development and assesses the structure of Polish GDP against other countries.

General aim of education

The student will discuss spatial diversity and give examples of indicators of socio‑economic development.

Key competences

• communication in foreign languages;

• digital competence;

• learning to learn;

• communication in the mother tongue.

Criteria for success
The student will learn:

• parameters of quantitative and qualitative economic development, including: GDP, Brandt's line, infant mortality, life satisfaction;

• discussing the parameters of social development: HDI and its components, Gini coefficient;

• pointing out countries in the world that have the highest and lowest rates of socio‑economic development;

• naming of social and natural factors affecting development.

Methods/techniques

• expository

  • talk.

• activating

  • discussion.

• programmed

  • with computer;

  • with e‑textbook.

• practical

  • exercices concerned.

Forms of work

• individual activity;

• activity in pairs;

• activity in groups;

• collective activity.

Teaching aids

• e‑textbook;

• interactive whiteboard, tablets/computers.

Lesson plan overview

Before classes

• Students get acquainted with the content of the abstract. They prepare to work on the lesson in such a way to be able to summarize the material read in their own words and solve the tasks themselves.

Introduction

• The teacher begins classes by giving the subject and the goals of the lesson.

• Displays on the interactive whiteboard a map from the e‑textbook: Diversity of social development. Discussion.

Realization

• Students rrcognize the countries that have the highest and lowest rates of social development, use geographical atlases.

• Students search for the term GDP indicator in various sources.

• Analysis of the tabular summary in the e‑textbook: Diversity of GDP per person according to the purchasing power parity in USD in 2013. The students point out the disproportions of GDP per capita.

• Students wonder in pairs about the factors that affect the GDP in the world. Discussion on the class forum.

• The teacher displays the interactive whiteboard a map from the textbook from: World - gross domestic product per capita. Students indicate countries with the highest GDP.

• The teacher explains what the Brandt line means. They indicates division into rich north and poor south. They point out exceptions on the example of South Africa and Australia.

• Work in pairs. Students explain the term associated with the next indicator of social development: infant mortality. They use the internet and the e‑textbook.

• They point on the world map where the highest infant mortality rate is. They give the main reasons for this situation.

• Work in pairs. Using the Internet and the e‑textbook, students develop a qualitative indicator. They give examples of countries in Europe and in the world, where there is the highest percentage of people satisfied with life.

• The students, working in pairs, prepare information on HDI development indicators: gross national income per person according to purchasing power parity, expected life expectancy and average number of years spent at school. They provide a way to convert this indicator. They indicate on the political map of the world the countries with the highest and lowest HDI.

• Idea generator: natural and non‑environmental factors that influence social development. Students write their ideas on an interactive whiteboard and create a mental map.

• Students search on the internet for explanations of what the Gini coefficient means.

• Using the political map of the world, students give examples of countries where the greatest social stratification occurs.

Summary

• At the summary, students do exercises on the interactive board related to the topic of the lesson..

• The teacher assesses the students' work, taking into account the contribution and their capacity..

Homework

• Listen to the abstract recording at home. Pay attention to pronunciation, accent and intonation. Learn to pronounce the words learned during the lesson.

• Make at home a note from the lesson using the sketchnoting method.

The following terms and recordings will be used during this lesson

Terms

Texts and recordings

Indicators of socio‑economic development

In assessing level of economic development, we usually use GDP per capita. Gross Domestic Product is the value of goods and services produced in a country over the course of a year. It is not related to average wages or average income.

The value of this is quite east=y to determine in countries that operate according to the law, where precise figures, such as the size of the population, are kept. In many countries these are for a large part estimates. Also, there is no one method for calculation – for example, separate data is published by the US government, the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund.

In this table are presented ranges of GDP per capita (per head, according to purchasing power parity).

To compare GDP across countries, it has been used purchasing power parity. The purchasing power parity allows to solve the problem of international GDP comparisons. The key issue is to collect data on prices from the aggregated list of goods and services, which contains comparable and representative products for the analyzed countries. Purchasing power parity is a more appropriate indicator than the financial (exchange‑banking) exchange rate, because it takes into account the purchasing power of the population.

Given the wide spread of figures, it is not difficult to distinguish highly developed and underdeveloped countries. The vast majority of countries fall in the middle. The question of which values should be used to separate highly developed countries from the middle group will always be open to debate.

It is easy to see that the countries with the highest GDP per capita are located in North America, Europe, the south of the Persian Gulf and in Australia. In turn, the lowest figures are prevalent in south‑Saharan Africa, South Asia and South‑East Asia. This differntiation has provided the basis for the distinction between the so‑called rich North and the poor South. The line of division is known as the Brandt Line.

In addition to the quantitative indicators for analysis of the socio‑economic situation of a place, we also use qualitative indicators. They are most often used to examine or analyse some „unmeasurable”. Each individual has their own criteria to assess their quality of life. These assessments, particularly when combined, are not objective, so cannot be verified. One of these is the Satisfaction of Life Index.

There are many indicators for levels of development, such as energy consumption per capita, expenditure on research and development, level of education attained and comparison between male and female earnings. However, each of these only shows part of the overall reality. That is why the UN Development Agenda publishes an annual composite index – **the social development index **(eng. Human Development Index – HDI).

Three indicators are analysed: gross national income per head, according to purchasing power parity, life expectancy and average number of years spent in education for adults (people age 25 and over) and expected number of years to be spent in education for children of school age. For each part, the highest value is 1 and the lowest is 0. Based on this, values for each country are worked out, and a synthetic result is calculated by taking the geometric mean.

Countries whose figure is at least 0.710 are considered to be highly developed, and those below 0.536 to be underdeveloped. In 2012 the world average was 0.694 and Norway, with 0.955, achieved the highest score. THe lowest was Niger – 0.304.

We should bear in mind that not all indicators that are helpful in describing socio‑economic development are consistent in any given country.

Information about development is added to by data on diversity within countries. These are described using the Gini coefficient (Social Inequality Index) – the higher the score in a given country, the greater the level of social disparity.

The map shows that there are smaller social inequalities in highly developed countries. In countries with less significant differences, development is faster.

• Many criteria are used to describe development: quantitative, eg GDP per capita, qualitative, eg satisfaction of life index, complex, eg social development indexes (HDI)

• The prevailing level of development is a result of the combined impact of natural and socio‑economic factors.