Title: Bachelor of Social Sciences (Honors)
Duration of the Program: 4 Years
Objectives of the program: The objective of the program is to train students with theoretical and practical knowledge and skill in population related fields. This program inculcates students with the knowledge that are necessary for understanding population and its related phenomena with basic statistical skill. The program also helps students to develop their capability to provide different population policies and programs in global and Bangladesh context. Apart from these, in the eighth semester of this program students get the opportunity to do a research monograph as a partial fulfilment of the degree. Here, students can get the opportunity to apply their theoretical and practical knowledge in field level. In this program, students are supposed to conduct their research for monograph on core population related issues such as fertility, mortality and migration along with related population health, gender issues, aging, developmental and environmental issues.
41 courses · 131 credit hours across 8 terms
| Code | Course title | Credits | |
|---|---|---|---|
| POP 101 | Introduction to Population Sciences | 4 | This introductory course will introduce the elementary issues of the two major social sciences disciplines, sociology and anthropology. Students will be familiar with the primary concepts of the elements of society and culture. The course aims to facilitate students with the basic introductory issues of sociology and anthropology so that students can later relate the multidimensional |
| POP 102 | Introduction to Sociology and Anthropology | 4 | This introductory course will introduce the elementary issues of the two major social sciences disciplines, sociology and anthropology. Students will be familiar with the primary concepts of the elements of society and culture. The course aims to facilitate students with the basic introductory issues of sociology and anthropology so that students can later relate the multidimensional population issues in the broader socio-cultural context with this basic understanding. |
| POP 103 | Introduction to Economics | 4 | This course provides an overview of economics. This introductory course will introduce the students to fundamental economic principles utilized in consumer choice and production theory and their applicability to contemporary economic issues and challenges. The course will start with the basic principles of economics, the production possibility frontier, scarcity of resources, opportunity cost, fundamental tools of supply and demand, elasticity, and its application. Furthermore, this course includes the topics of consumer behavior, production function, market structures, and key macroeconomic indicators, as well as their interrelationships. Finally, students will engage in stimulating discussions and analytical exercises to deepen their understanding of the economic landscape. |
| POP 104 | Introduction to Political System and Governance | 4 | This course provides an introductory overview of the classifications, theories, purposes, and applications of each basic concept of political institutions and governance. The student will learn about state, government, and governance theories. The course also prepares students for further study in understanding the link between political institutions and the population of other classes in the 4-year curriculum by providing conceptual and analytical tools appropriate to the field. |
| Code | Course title | Credits | |
|---|---|---|---|
| POP 105 | Social Psychology | 2 | Social psychology is a discipline that looks to comprehend individuals' cognitive processes about their self-perception and the broader social context in which they exist, encompassing interpersonal relationships and many environmental factors. The phenomenon of motivation towards certain behaviors within social contexts is a topic of inquiry within social psychology. This course aims to offer opportunities for the acquisition of specific abilities that are not only valuable in the context of studying, comprehending, and influencing human behavior but also applicable to other domains of life. |
| POP 106 | Family Demography | 4 | The purpose of this course is to offer students knowledge of central aspects of family demography, such as fertility, family formation, divorce, and cohabitation. This course examines various concepts, theories, issues, and debates about marriage and family. It describes the historical perspectives of marriage and family. It focuses on types of marriage and family, changing marriage and family trends, and ever-changing family functions. It enables students to understand core family theories, the dynamics of mate selection, romantic relationships, divorce, single-parenting, children in broken families, remarriage, working mothers, LGBT (Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender) families as part of human life experiences of today’s society. This course depicts marriage-family interactions in the context of demography. |
| POP 107 | Social Sciences Research Methodology –I | 4 | This course is an overview of Social Science Research Methodology. It is an introductory-level course that aims to inform students about the basic concepts of research, how to conduct research, and why research is important for life and society. This course introduces students to the fundamental principles and methods of social research. It covers research purposes, knowledge production, and the distinction between common sense and scientific knowledge. The course also delves into the foundations of social science research, the process of selecting and formulating research problems, the relationship between theory and research, types of research, research designs, and basic sampling techniques. |
| POP 108 | Basic Mathematics | 2 | This course will cover fundamental mathematics concepts essential for statistics and demographics applications. These concepts include set theory, Real number systems, combinatorics, relations and functions, graphs of functions, calculus, vectors, and matrices. The primary goal of this course is to equip students with the necessary mathematical and analytical skills and develop their critical thinking abilities. |
| POP 109 | Population, Environment, and Sustainable Development | 4 | This course presents the complex and multifaceted relationship between population, environment, and sustainable development. The courses will address sustainable development, population dynamics, and environmental issues, emphasizing current social, political, and development issues. This course investigates policies that support sustainability and the reasons behind their typical marginalization or omission from intergovernmental processes focused on sustainable development. |
| POP 110 | Viva-Voce | 1 | Population and development are composite concepts by nature and population issues do not exist in isolation. Thus, any development effort should take into account the parameters of population for sustained economic growth and welfare of the society. In this regard the link between population and development, particularly the social and economic development has been the subject of intense discussions and debates are encouraged in this course. |
| Code | Course title | Credits | |
|---|---|---|---|
| POP 201 | Fertility and Reproduction | 4 | This course provides a comprehensive understanding of human fertility and reproduction, covering the biological, medical, and social aspects. It aims to equip students with knowledge about reproductive systems, fertility issues, contraception, and assisted reproductive technologies (ART). This course introduces students to the basic concepts and measures applied in studying human fertility. The course is designed to provide students with theoretical frameworks for studying fertility. The course will focus on the determinants of fertility and the fertility behavior of the population in the context of socioeconomic development, gender relations, poverty, etc. It will examine social policies addressing different fertility situations in the current global fertility situation. This course aims to focus on contemporary trends, patterns, and determinants of fertility in Bangladesh. Issues and fertility decline in Bangladesh and a global context will be a significant focus of the course. |
| POP 202 | Population and Gender | 4 | Population and Gender considers how gender can be applied to realize population-related phenomena. This course links gender studies and population studies. Students will develop critical thinking about population and gender-related issues. They will know how to tackle gender-related socio-cultural norms and beliefs to reduce gender inequalities in national and global contexts. Students will also learn the methodological aspects of feminism. While learning key gender issues, discussion will also occur regarding this field's theoretical and practical contribution. |
| POP 204 | Social Sciences Research Methodology -II | 4 | This course introduces students to applying qualitative and quantitative designs and data analysis used in research. Students will understand the differences between qualitative and quantitative research and accordingly, data analysis. The course will expose the students to the epistemological and ontological debates and their roles in social research. This course will blend learning theoretical and practical skills in researching qualitative and quantitative designs and data analysis |
| POP 203 | Statistics for Population Sciences I | 3 | Statistics for Population Sciences I is designed to provide an overview of the discipline of Statistics and familiarize students with the basic concepts and issues of Statistics and its applications. Through this course, students will understand the preliminary concepts of statistics and also be able to apply this knowledge to population and social science-related research. |
| POP 203 A | Statistics for Population Sciences (Lab)-I | 1 | The Statistics for Population Sciences lab I is designed to equip the students to apply the methods learned in Descriptive Statistics using practical data. In this course, students will be introduced to SPSS used in statistical analysis and develop expertise. After completing the lab, the students will learn how to handle quantitative data, such as creating data entry templates, data entry, cleaning, and analyzing data using descriptive statistical tools. |
| Code | Course title | Credits | |
|---|---|---|---|
| POP 205 | Morbidity and Mortality | 4 | Morbidity and Mortality is one of the key courses of Population Sciences. In this course, students will study the basic concepts of morbidity and mortality with contemporary debate and theories. This course will introduce the students to the trends and differentials of morbidity and mortality. Students will also learn the nature of mortality and morbidity transition, emphasizing long-term mortality decline. They will also learn the global, regional, and national mortality and morbidity patterns, including health promotion. |
| POP 207 | Population and Development | 4 | Population and development are composite concepts by nature, and population issues do not exist in isolation. Thus, any development effort should consider the parameters of the population for sustained economic growth and the welfare of society. In this regard, the link between population and development, particularly social and economic development, has been the subject of intense discussions, and debates are encouraged in this course. Keeping that in view, the main aim of the course is to build the capacity not only to explain the population and development debate but also to articulate the potential positive and negative aspects of demographic processes and their role in development vis-a-vis. |
| POP 208 | Migration and Mobility | 4 | This course will introduce population movements and migration as a major socio-demographic context of population studies and enable conceptualizing the population-migration-development nexus from a multidisciplinary theoretical perspective in the national and international context. |
| POP 206 | Statistics for Population Sciences II | 3 | To achieve statistical sophistication, descriptive and inferential statistics are two required investigative methodologies for understanding, evaluating, and carrying out research. With a foundational knowledge of the description statistics acquired in the previous semester, students will learn inferential statistics in this course that focuses on drawing reliable conclusions about the characteristics of a population based on a sample. They can apply this knowledge to various population-related issues and research. Students will also be introduced to statistical software, SPSS, to apply the advanced knowledge of statistical analysis. Overall, this course aims to engraft students with the advanced application of statistical knowledge necessary to understand population dynamics and conduct quantitative research. |
| POP 206 A | Statistics for Population Sciences (Lab) II | 1 | This lab is designed to develop the students' expertise in using inferential statistical techniques to draw reliable conclusions about the characteristics of a population based on a sample. They will be able to apply this knowledge to various population-related issues and research using SPSS, demonstrating their advanced knowledge of statistical analysis. |
| POP 209 | Viva-Voce | 1 | Rationale of the Viva-Voce, Course Learning Outcomes (CLOs) |
| Code | Course title | Credits | |
|---|---|---|---|
| POP 301 | Techniques of Population Analysis I | 3 | This course takes students from demographic measures to demographic methods. It builds directly on POP 101, which establishes the sources of demographic data and the standard descriptive measures of fertility, mortality, migration and population composition; those are assumed here and are not retaught. What this course adds is technique: the logic of person-years of exposure and the relationship between rates and probabilities; the assessment of age and sex data quality before that data is used; direct and indirect standardization; the construction, interpretation and application of the life table; the measurement of reproductivity and of nuptiality; the estimation of migration from census data; and population estimation and projection. Every technique is taught with a computer-laboratory component in which students compute the measure themselves from Bangladeshi census, SVRS and BDHS data. Model-based and formal-demographic methods — model schedules, indirect estimation and stable population theory — are the subject of the successor course, POP 306. |
| POP 301 A | Techniques of Population Analysis (Lab) I | 1 | This lab course is designed to develop students’ practical skills in advanced population analysis through hands-on experience with data handling, statistical methods, and demographic modeling. It aims to enhance students’ understanding of the fundamental concepts and techniques used in demographic research, focusing on the application of both direct and indirect estimation methods. The course also emphasizes critical thinking about the assumptions underlying demographic measures and models. |
| POP 302 | Urbanization, Urban Planning, and Development | 4 | The course introduces various urban environments/settlements and demonstrates how social and geographic inequalities are caused by the interaction of urbanization, globalization, and economic expansion. Using case studies from both the developed and developing worlds, the course will also address how to use the relational comparative urbanism approach and regionally based theoretical perspectives to comprehend the diverse urban landscapes around the world. A complete understanding of cities is necessary from the standpoint of planning, and this is made possible by looking into its history and the different theories, conceptions, and planning techniques that have shaped it. The course will also give students a foundation for critically examining our role in some of the most urgent urban environmental and social concerns of our day and for positively considering potential paths toward change. Finally, the students will be able to comprehend and relate the interaction of urbanization, urban planning, and development from a multidisciplinary standpoint in the national and international context. |
| POP 303 | Mixed Methods Research Design, Data Analysis, and Report Writing | 4 | Mixed methods research is now the dominant approach to complex social and health problems, yet it is the approach most often used without warrant. This course pursues two aims at the same time. The first is theoretical: to give students a secure command of the philosophical basis of research. A decision about how to study the social world is first a decision about the nature of reality, about what can be known and by whom, and about the purpose research is meant to serve. The course therefore begins with four philosophical worldviews — the positivist, the constructionist, the transformative and the pragmatic — and moves outward to the families of research approaches and strategies of inquiry that follow from each, so that students see method as the consequence of a philosophical position rather than an arbitrary choice. Only then does the course turn to research design, treating quantitative and qualitative designs before mixed methods designs, because a mixed methods design cannot be defended by a student who does not first understand the two designs it combines. The second aim is practical: to have students conduct mixed methods of study. Working in research teams, students identify a researchable problem, synthesize the literature, develop and defend a proposal and its instruments, collect their own quantitative and qualitative data, analyse survey data in SPSS, STATA and R and interview and focus group data in NVivo and ATLAS.ti, integrate the two strands through joint displays and meta-inference, and write and defend a complete research report to recognized reporting standards. The course closes by turning the same critical apparatus outward, teaching students to appraise published quantitative, qualitative and mixed methods research against explicit quality criteria. |
| POP 304 | Social and Behavior Change Communication | 4 | This course covers the components of behavior modification and communication, along with an explanation of their relationship. It provides an overview of how various social and behavioral communication factors can, depending on the situation, result in various specific health outcomes. Additionally, looks into strategic health communication programs to enhance macro and micro health conditions. |
| Code | Course title | Credits | |
|---|---|---|---|
| POP 305 | Population Ageing | 4 | Population ageing is an increasingly important demographic phenomenon with significant implications for individuals, families, communities, and national development. This course provides students with a multidisciplinary understanding of the demographic drivers and biological, psychological, social, economic, and policy dimensions of ageing. It examines global trends while giving particular attention to the emerging challenges and opportunities associated with population ageing in Bangladesh. The course equips students to critically understand the needs, rights, well-being, and social inclusion of older people and to assess appropriate policies and programmes for an ageing society. |
| POP 306 | Techniques of Population Analysis II | 3 | This course develops the model-based and indirect methods that demographers use when data are incomplete, defective or unavailable — the normal condition in Bangladesh and in most of the developing world. Building on the descriptive measures established in POP 301, it treats advanced life-table analysis, model life tables and parametric mortality laws, model fertility schedules, the indirect estimation of child and adult mortality and of fertility, methods for assessing the completeness of death registration, the proximate determinants of fertility, stable population theory, cohort-component and probabilistic population projection, and models of migration. Throughout, the emphasis is on the assumptions that lie behind each estimate: students are expected to state what a method assumes, to test whether those assumptions hold in the data at hand, and to report the resulting estimate with an honest account of its uncertainty. Each block of the course is paired with a computer-laboratory session applying the method to Bangladeshi census, SVRS, and BDHS data. |
| POP 306 A | Techniques of Population Analysis (Lab) II | 1 | This lab course is designed to develop students’ practical skills in advanced population analysis through hands-on experience with data handling, statistical methods, and demographic modeling. It aims to enhance students’ understanding of the fundamental concepts and techniques used in demographic research, focusing on the application of both direct and indirect estimation methods. The course also emphasizes critical thinking about the assumptions underlying demographic measures and models. |
| POP 307 | Sexual and Reproductive Health and Rights | 4 | This course develops students' understanding of sexual and reproductive health and rights (SRHR) from national and global perspectives. It is deliberately sequenced so that the work becomes more demanding as the semester progresses, moving from understanding ideas to using them, and finally to judging policy and designing responses. Students begin with the foundational concepts of SRHR as they are understood from diverse perspectives, including universal access and a rights-based approach, and with the historical development of the field — in particular the shift in thinking that followed the International Conference on Population and Development (ICPD) and what it has meant for Bangladesh. They then turn to how services are actually organised and delivered, covering maternal and newborn health, family planning, safe abortion, STI/RTI prevention, adolescent- and youth-friendly services, advocacy and comprehensive sexuality education, and what it takes for such services to be of good quality and genuinely accessible. Building on this, students examine patterns of SRH-related illness and death — maternal, infant and child health, STIs and HIV/AIDS, menstrual health and mental health — along with the SRHR challenges facing Bangladesh and other developing countries and the heightened risks that arise during humanitarian crises. The course closes with students assessing national SRHR policies, strategies and programmes against the Sustainable Development Goals and working out evidence-based responses to emerging SRHR issues. Because much of the subject matter is culturally sensitive, the more demanding tasks are introduced gradually with structured support, and all discussion is conducted under ground rules on confidentiality and respectful disagreement agreed in the first session. |
| POP 308 | Principles of Epidemiology | 4 | Epidemiology is important for understanding how diseases spread, why they happen, and how to treat them in groups of people. The goal of this course is to give students both theoretical knowledge and practical skills so they can look at health-related events and use epidemiological principles in real life. It gives students the tools they need to look at disease patterns, spot risk factors, and use data to make public health decisions that are based on evidence. The course focuses on prevention, the importance of policy, and improving health systems. It teaches students how to use critical thinking, analytical reasoning, and ethical practice to solve current population health problems in both national and international settings. |
| POP 309 | Viva-Voce | 1 | Rationale of the Viva-Voce, Course Learning Outcomes (CLOs) |
| Code | Course title | Credits | |
|---|---|---|---|
| POP 401 | Population Dynamics of Bangladesh | 4 | This course will introduce population dynamics in Bangladesh, its determinants, and related issues in the national context. It will seek to understand Bangladesh's population dynamics by explaining the basic demographic processes and other past, present, and future issues. This course will provide insights into the changes in demographic phenomena and their impact in Bangladesh with a specific focus on the overview of Bangladesh's population, age-sex transition and demographic dividend in Bangladesh, marriage dynamics in Bangladesh and its implications, fertility transition in Bangladesh; mortality and health transition in Bangladesh; population mobility and movement in Bangladesh; population mobility and movement in Bangladesh; population aging in Bangladesh; nutrition in Bangladesh; consequences of population dynamics in Bangladesh: health, environment, urbanization; future population of Bangladesh: issues and challenges; population policy and family planning programs in Bangladesh. |
| POP 402 | Proposal Development for Research Monograph | 2 | This is a practical, workshop-based course whose single purpose is to prepare each student to carry out the four-credit research monograph. It covers the pre-empirical phase of research — everything that must be settled before a single item of data is collected — and it is taught by doing rather than by describing. Students begin from problem identification and then build one section of their own proposal at a time: narrowing a broad interest into a researchable problem; searching and screening the literature and organizing it into a review matrix; writing an evidenced introduction, problem statement and synthesized literature review; constructing a conceptual framework; formulating objectives, research questions, hypotheses and variables and testing their alignment; selecting and justifying a design, a study population and a sampling strategy; developing, translating and pre-testing a data collection tool; and preparing the ethical review documents, work plan and timeline. Every session pair a short conceptual input with a supervised workshop in which students draft, critique and revise a section of their own proposal, and every session ends with a named written output that becomes part of the final submission. Practical guidance is given throughout on the operational questions that decide whether a proposal works — how narrow a topic has to be, how many sources are enough, how to write a gap statement, how to phrase an item so that it can actually be answered, how to pre-test a tool with almost no money, and how to build a timeline backwards from the submission deadline. The fifteen topics correspond to the fifteen weekly two-hour sessions, so that one component of the proposal is built each week. The course is assessed on the two outputs a proposal must survive in practice: an oral presentation and defense, and a complete written proposal submitted together with its data collection tool. |
| POP 403 | Population, Poverty and Inequality | 4 | This course provides students with a comprehensive understanding of poverty—its measurement, theoretical foundations, and the trends and patterns associated with it. Students will learn the key concepts, theories, and empirical evidence related to inequality. Furthermore, this course offers students an in-depth understanding of the complex interactions between population dynamics, poverty, and inequality in both global and national contexts. Attention is given to the context of Bangladesh, analyzing the root causes of poverty and inequality, evaluating existing policies, identifying challenges, and exploring potential pathways for improvement. By integrating theoretical perspectives with real-world applications, the course will help students develop critical thinking skills to address the poverty and inequality concerns for development outcomes. |
| POP 404 | Project Management, Monitoring, and Evaluation | 4 | Projects are essential instruments for translating policies, plans, and research evidence into practical interventions and measurable development results. Effective project management, monitoring, and evaluation are therefore critical for ensuring the efficient use of resources, accountability to stakeholders, organizational learning, and evidence-informed decision-making. This course equips students with the conceptual knowledge and practical skills required to design, plan, implement, monitor, and evaluate projects across their life cycles. Particular attention is given to project-management processes, stakeholder and problem analysis, the Logical Framework Approach, implementation monitoring, performance indicators, and evaluation criteria. Through these competencies, students will be prepared to contribute to well-managed and results-oriented projects in population, health, and broader development contexts. |
| POP 405 | Population Estimations and Projections | 2 | This course provides students with foundational knowledge and practical skills in population estimation and projection. It covers comprehensive methods for projecting demographic components such as fertility, mortality, and migration, emphasizing both traditional demographic techniques and interdisciplinary approaches. Students will explore a variety of projection methodologies, including cohort-component models, time series analysis, and probabilistic forecasting, while also addressing challenges such as small-population forecasting and forecast accuracy. This course integrates demographic methods with insights from related fields such as regional science, economics, and social development, enabling students to apply robust projection techniques relevant to effective policymaking and population planning. |
| Code | Course title | Credits | |
|---|---|---|---|
| POP 406 | Population and Health Policies and Programs in Bangladesh | 4 | This course offers critical thinking about Bangladesh's population and health policies and programs. It also enables students to understand the concepts and debates relating to policies, the policymaking process, and evaluation, to analyze the roles of key population and health policy actors, and to consider the relationship between evidence and policy concerning population and health. |
| POP 407 | Climate Change, Vulnerability, and Adaptation | 4 | This course introduces the intricate and dynamic concepts of climate change, vulnerability, and adaptation. The course focuses on societal and policy viewpoints when analyzing vulnerability and adaptation to climate change. Vulnerability and adaptation theories will be examined in this course. Using developing country policy and planning documents, the course reviews various policies that can reduce the impact of climate change at both the global and local levels. |
| POP 408 | Research Monograph | 4 | The Research Monograph is designed as a capstone requirement for undergraduate students to consolidate their disciplinary knowledge, research skills, and critical thinking in the field of population and health sciences. It provides a structured opportunity to independently design and execute a research project that integrates demographic theories, population data, and analytical methods to address pressing population, development, and health issues. Students will learn to link their findings with sustainable development perspectives and population policy concerns in global, regional, and national contexts. This course bridges theoretical learning and practical application, ensuring that graduates are equipped to conduct evidence-based inquiries, contribute to academic debates, and provide insights for policymaking. |
| POP 409 | Written Comprehensive | 4 | Rationale of the Written Comprehensive, Course Learning Outcomes (CLOs) |