Recruitment and Use of Children as Soldiers in the Republic of Congo and Sudan

ChAD106: Concepts of Childhood
Research Paper
Assignment Description

There are four global topics that we address in ChAD106 over the semester: Child Health, Child Labor, Education, and Child Soldiers. For the research paper, students will select one of these topics (or a specific subtopic relating to one of these global issues) and discuss the relevant situation in two different countries (but Nepal and the United States cannot be one of your choices). You will address the following:

• Background information on the topic in each country (e.g., an accurate description of the current situation regarding your topic with relevant statistics, applicable historical and cultural background information. Consider using the following websites for background information: World Bank (www.worldbank.org), the United Nations (www.un.org/en/), the World Health Organization (www.who.int/en/), the CIA World Factbook (https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/theworldfactbook/), International Red Cross (http://www.icrc.org/eng/), The SUNY Levin Institute (http://levin.suny.edu/globalization101.cfm), and Amnesty International (http://www.amnesty.org/)
• Progress being made in each country (e.g., the current laws and interventions being implemented by that country in regard to the topic, etc.)
• Remaining challenges in each country (e.g., the problems that stand in the way of further progress)
• What your findings suggest about the view of childhood in those countries

Students should research their topics through the use of both the criticism of other scholars (i.e., professional peerreviewed journals and books) and their own analysis of primary source materials (e.g., websites, popular media, case studies, interviews, and census reports from the countries you are studying, etc.). A minimum of six current scholarly sources must be referenced. Current scholarly sources means peerreviewed journal articles published in the past 10 years. To thoroughly examine the topic in each country, student will also need additional information from credible humanitarian organizations and government documents, as well as one primary source for each country . It is expected that the research paper would be approximately 1012 pages of text (typewritten, and doublespaced).

Title page, references, and appendices would be additional. It is NOT necessary to include an
abstract.
Students are also expected to reference their material using the American Psychological Association (APA) format. A formatting guide is posted on the course shell under the FILES tab. All information from your research sources must be properly cited.
Completed papers will need to be submitted to the Assignment area of the course shell on the due date listed in the syllabus. Please see the Research Paper Rubric for additional information regarding grading of this assignment.

Students will need to turn in a onepage description of their research paper topic with at least six current scholarly references early in the semester (the due date is listed in the syllabus). This assignment is not graded, but it provides an opportunity for me to give students feedback on their research paper plans early in the term.

Pages: 12, double spaced