The document summarizes the student exchange program between Tata Institute of Social Sciences in India and the University of Chicago's School of Social Service Administration in the US. It describes the students' coursework experiences, including classes on global development, program evaluation, and policing. It also details the students' fieldwork placements at various social service organizations in Chicago and the critical reflections they developed on poverty and marginalization in the city.

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STUDENT EXCHANGE PROGRAMME-2016
WITH
SSA, THE UNIVERSITY OF CHICAGO, IL
As a part of the exchange programme for students of second year M.A. Social Work in
Community Organisation and Development Practice, School of Social Work, Tata Institute of
Social Sciences with School of Social Service Administration (SSA), University of Chicago,
Illinois, United States of America for the year 2015-16, the students visited University of
Chicago from 18 October 2016 to 19 November 2016. Ms. Cristina Gros from Office of
International Affairs and the exchange students who came to TISS arranged for the field
visits and ensured that the students get a wholesome experience while at Chicago. The
students received a local SIM card, a travel card and student ID card of UChicago. The
students were given a general orientation about the admission and structure of the course
offered at School of Social Service Administration. The courses offered by SSA have a mix
of compulsory courses as well as electives.
The students got an orientation on fieldwork settings offered by SSA, usage of library
facilities in the campus and admission to graduate and doctoral courses to SSA. They also
attended seminars on Non-profits in the US as well as Advocacy, Refugees, and Human
Rights with respect to the context of US. The students also visited various neighbourhoods in
the city with the support of the exchange students who came to TISS. They facilitated the
visits to Uptown, Latino Neighbourhoods, African American Neighbourhoods, China-town,
the meeting attended by grass-root level activists from Mexico who are involved in various
issues such as missing students from universities, so called development projects happening
in tribal land, missing women, etc.
Students attended three course works and shadowed SSA students at their field work setting
during the one month long stay in UChicago. The details of the course work and field work
are explained in detail.
Course Work in University of Chicago
The exchange students attended three course works viz.
1. Global Development and Social Welfare
2. Programme Evaluation in International Setting

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3. Policing, Citizenship, and Inequality in Comparative Perspective
Global Development and Social Welfare
This course critically examines the major theories of global development along with
contemporary debates relating to international social welfare. The course was attended by a
total of 9 students including the exchange students. The course was structured in such a way
that the lecturer would brief about the plan for the class, take lecture for two hours and then
the last one hour of the session was reserved for discussions moderated by one of the students
based on the readings that were given for the day. Most of the time the discussion developed
into a fruitful one with insights from students who hail from different countries, ethnicity and
viewpoints. The lecturer moderates the overall discussion and ensures that it is on track and
also takes part in the discussion as and when required. The readings were thus discussed on a
daily basis in the class and the lecture would be linked to the discussion thus making the
assimilation of subject easier.
The students could actively take part in the discussion and bring the situation in India to the
table. The course was well structured and dealt with the following topics while the students
got to attend five weeks of class:
 Conceptualizing development
 Geography and natural resources
 Legacies of colonialism and slavery
 Culture, identity, and interests
 States, markets, and development models
 Globalization and neo-colonialism
 Foreign aid and humanitarianism
 Political institutions and governance
 State capacity and contemporary reforms
Programme Evaluation in International Setting
The course is an advanced level course designed to give students the knowledge base and
core skills (quantitative and qualitative) to carry out evaluations of programs, organizations
and social services in the international context. The session was divided in such a way that
theory related to research methods was taken in the first half and the practice of the same in

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SPSS was done in the second half. The students from TISS got a chance to reinforce their
concepts in research methods as well as SPSS. The students also learned how evaluation has
to be an essential part of the design of a programme.
The students attending the session learned working with SPSS slowly with help from the
lecturer on a regular basis and hence it was easier for them to link with the theory of research
methods. Hands-on experience with SPSS at every step made it easier for the students to
learn the software as well.
Policing, Citizenship, and Inequality in Comparative Perspective
Through comparative analysis of police institutions in Latin America, the United States, and
other regions, the course probed the ways in which police institutions shape the lived
experiences of individuals and how police may help reproduce existing social inequalities.
The class was in the format of lecture followed by discussions and open-editorial presentation
by two students. This course also centred its discussions on readings for the class and
discussed multiple perspectives such as how policing is different in neighbourhood of colour,
transgender (Trans woman in specific), and how under policing and over policing has
structured certain societies. The students from TISS got to share their perspective on policing
in India and how that is restricted to certain regions and communities of the country and the
reasons for the same.
Field work in University of Chicago
The students were placed with students from SSA to shadow them at their field work setting.
The four students were allotted different settings. The experiences at each of these settings
over the four weeks were different in terms of the type of engagement with the community as
well as the nature of work in these settings. The field work agencies that were assigned to the
students were:
Heartland Human Care Services: Northern Tier Anti-Trafficking Consortium (NTAC)/
Freedom from Trafficking Programme
The NTAC is a federally funded collaborative of 7 organisations, led by Heartland Human
Care Services serving foreign-borne survivors of human trafficking in New England, New
York, New Jersey, the Great Lakes and the Upper Midwest. The agency works in partnership
with the client, and his or her team according to the requirements of the participant, to

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develop and implement a service plan that enables the most independent life possible in the
community and promotes self-determination. The student got an understanding how one to
one practice of social work is undertaken and how files are maintained for each client. The
student also got a chance to sit in the discussion phase meeting of extension of anti-
trafficking programme to other parts of Illinois State. The nitty-gritties of launching the
programme to evaluation of the programme were discussed in the meeting with the partners
of Heartland Alliance who are carrying out the extension process. It was an important
learning opportunity in terms of programme planning and evaluation.
Asian American advancing justice
Shibili was shadowing Mr. Ben in the field work in ‘Asian American advancing justice’, an
organisation exist to empower the Asian American community through advocacy, education,
research and coalition building. It was an interesting time to be in USA for social worker
because of heat president’s election campaign, Trump’s anti-immigrant and anti-Muslim
rhetoric was floating in the public spaces.
In the first week, the student went to attend a meeting of social activists who are urging for
police accountability in Chicago. The main agenda in the meeting was to organise a mass
protest in front of the office of chief of Chicago police to urge for accountability in the police
brutality. The reason behind this attempt for this mobilisation was the extra-judicial killings
happening Chicago and the surrounding areas.
In the second week, the student was assisting Mr.Ben to create a module for ‘Kinetic youth
program’, the main teaching program provided by ‘Asian-American advancing justice’ for
the new immigrants from the Asian countries to learn English. Now days, the Whiteman
nationalism is moving into its peak in USA and all other identities are under question. Here
the situations of American are also not different. The Asian Americans are also facing lot of
challenges in the name of their ethnicity and their less fluency in English language.
The third week field work has started with tragic news of victory of trump in the presidential
election. The whole employees got shocked at that moment and conducted an emergency
press release in the office of ‘Illinois coalition for immigrants and refugees’. Many social
activists, democratic representatives and community organisers are attended the meeting and
called out for the strong unity of all the sections of American society who are going to phase
challenges under trump regime.

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The fourth week was quite interesting because it was an advocacy work in the legislative
assembly of the state of Illinois. The students went to Springfield, capital of Illinois to meet
the representatives to seek their support for a student access bill which going to help the
immigrant youth to get admission and scholarship in the university of Illinois.
As learning from the field, the students can put forward the diversity of social work practice
in both the countries. Each of the countries has a particular kind of social work practice,
which is evolved as a response to that particular circumstance. Much of the organisation in
USA is engaged in the direct practices rather than the focus on the macro level issues. The
work of social worker is so professionalized in a manner which most of the social workers are
engaged in the client centred practice.
American Friends Service Committee
Ms. Pooja shadowed Ms. Aliea in field work with American Friends Service Committee. She
got a very fruitful support and guidance from field work supervisor Darlene and one of the
exchange students Jesus Palafox who works in the same organization and who came to India.
The American Friends Service Committee (AFSC) is a Quaker organization that promotes
lasting peace with justice, as a practical expression of faith in action. They are working
worldwide on peace building. According to their philosophy the peace is a concept beyond
mere absence of war.
AFSC works with refugees, political asylum seekers and undocumented citizens. They are
also actively working in Syria and Vietnam on peace building. AFSC is effectively working
on macro and micro level with a vision to bring global peace. The student worked with
‘Dreamer’s club’ which is a group of undocumented children in Senn High School of
Chicago. As per the educational policy of USA, a child irrespective of citizenship should get
free and compulsory education till high school. The children who are undocumented, don’t
face any problems until they are in high school. Once they complete high school education
and apply for graduate school, the question of being documented or undocumented citizen
comes in picture.
The concept of ‘undocumented citizen’ means that the persons who are residing in USA
without a visa or citizenship proof. They come to USA with tourist visa and settle in there or
they get cheated by the various visa service provider agents or some from nearby countries
cross the border and start staying in USA. There are many such people in Chicago from all

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the parts of the world. The social workers from AFSA have to deal with it very carefully
because the great amount of confidentiality has to be maintained. Clients share their
citizenship status with the social workers to find way through their problems but if they get
exposed then there will be serious consequences by law. The important problem with being
undocumented citizen is that the person or family remains stuck in USA forever and if they
disclose their citizenship status they are put in jails. It is difficult for them to return to their
home country even if they wish too.
Refugees and asylum seekers don’t come under the category of undocumented citizens as
their status of being refugee or asylum seeker has been recorded with the government.
In the first week, student visited dreamer’s club in the school. There were two counsellors
from AFSA talking to the group of undocumented high school students. They were
discussing about applying for scholarship and further education in graduate school. The
counsellor was telling them the minimum grades they should have in high school to get the
scholarship and admission for a particular course in particular graduate school. AFSA mainly
works on individual and group level. It was observed through field work and various other
different field visits that the people from Chicago are comfortable sharing their concerns and
opinions on one-to-one basis or in a group of similar kind of people. There a very less sense
of attachment towards community.
The people from communities in Chicago are bonded with each other on the basis of identity
or for a common social cause, but not much of one-to-one interaction was found among
people unlike India. In the second week the student watched a couple of short films made by
AFSA and they had a detailed discussion on the same. The short films were about US policy
on army recruitment. US government gives offer to the young family members of
undocumented citizens to join US army to get citizenship status for all family members of
that person. They are promised to be paid good remuneration with all the facilities that army
persons get. Such people who fall prey to the offer made by US government shared their
experiences through the short film. There were army women who shared the experiences of
rape, harassment and abuse by US army men. There were Mexican, African American and
Asian men who were sharing about the abusive treatment they get from the whites in the
army. They were regretting their decisions. After watching the film a very critical and
prolong discussion took place with supervisor on the same. AFSC is making people aware

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about such traps made by US government to use people’s vulnerabilities for their own
benefits.
Through this experience, the student could observe that when government of US wanted
manpower to perform menial and jobs of the lowest rug, they accepted immigrants and
refugees from all over the world. Now, the city of Chicago has enough population and the
government can see people on the roads without any shelter. The crime rate has increased due
to poverty. People in Chicago are judged by their skin colour and race. Now they are worried
about sharing resources which they have to do with the immigrants. Therefore to maintain
status quo of a developed country they don’t want people from outside. They did so by
electing Donald Trump as President who is anti-immigrant.
This field work was very useful to know different social issue and the different strategies
used to solve the same. It was also felt very important to work on individual and group basis
when the issue is very sensitive and highly confidential. In India, there is a lot of importance
to community approach for greater good of large number of people but it is also important to
work with people at individual and group basis on the same time.
Field Visits
The field visits to different neighbourhood were to understand the difference in access to
resources, organisation, community resources and racial composition of various
neighbourhoods. The neighbourhoods visited were Pilsen (Latino neighbourhood), Little
Village (Latino neighbourhood), Back of the yards (African-American neighbourhood),
Uptown (Asian neighbourhood), China town (South East Asian neighbourhood) and so on.
The students from Uchicago who came to TISS accompanied the students and either directly
or through contacts in the field explained the significance of the neighbourhoods, their past,
present and what future could be considering the issues they face at present. The importance
of graphics in these neighbourhoods, what they signify was also explained to us. The field
visits helped to understand the diverse communities in the city and how they live their lives
on a day to day basis. It also helped us to understand the issues related to second class
citizenship attributed to certain communities and how their identity plays an important role in
determining their position in the society irrespective of their economic status.

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Critical Reflection on Poverty and Marginalisation based on the Learning at Chicago
It was a very enriching learning experience for the students to experience different people,
with different culture, morals and values who live a different lifestyle in a different society
with different social problems in that context. After class room experience, field work,
seminars and various field visits in the neighbourhoods around Chicago, students could
critically analyse the social issues and its various dimensions. Some of the social issues
related to poverty and marginalization with which students came across are described as
follows:
1. Homelessness
The concept of homelessness in Chicago is understood differently according to different
organisations. The federal government considers those people who are residing in transitional
shelters, unsheltered spaces such as on public transportation, in parks, cars, and other
locations not meant for sleeping. According to this definition, 6,786 people are homeless in
the city of Chicago which indicates 8% increase from the previous year. (Homelessness
Point-in-Time Count & Survey report, 2015). But the finding of Chicago coalition for
homelessness says that over 130,000 people in Chicago live with family or friends due to the
economic hardship and unaffordable housing system. By including this population into the
category of homeless population, in 2015, 125,848 individuals experienced homelessness
over the course of a year. Further, the Chicago homeless population is made up of 76%
African American, 11% White, 10% Latino, and 3% other ethnicities. Within this spectrum,
16% population are physically disabled, 13% is veterans and almost 26% live with mental
illness (Chicago coalition for Homelessness, 2015).
Homeless is one of the worst experiences for anybody who lives in a city like Chicago (Wind
city) where the atmospheric temperature fall down -6 degree Celsius in winter season. We
came across some homeless people during the visit to Chicago, who are sleeping in the
pavements, trains and under the bridges and we had conversation with some of them. Here
the homelessness should be taken into consideration from a macro level perspective because
many of them are African Americans, veterans and physically challenged people. Here the
question remains is why only certain sections of society only facing these kind of deprivation.
Most of these sections are historically vulnerable and state law regarding housing makes the
situation unaffordable. Further, the narrative homeless people is also tells us how the

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deprivations are linked with the structural adjustments of federal system. Basically, all the
apartments owned by private parties and they are renting for huge prices. In this occasion, the
federal government started to think about providing affordable housing and set up few
apartments. But later the government has tendered these houses to the private parties in the
name of rejuvenation. The figure is an example for a hotel undergone through rejuvenation
process (Figure 1). But one of the interesting things I observed in Chicago is the cloth
collection boxes set up in each corners of the city where people to put their old dresses and
shoes which will be taken by people sleeping in the streets to overcome the coldness.
The situation of veterans and people with disability is more severe because they have less
access to jobs. Many of them are sustaining only through begging in the streets. The life in
the streets of Chicago is not so easy task. It is the city which has the most crime rates in
America and one of the most insecure cities in the world. These homeless people are living in
the streets where drug dealers, robbery and gun violence are a daily phenomenon. It is
increasing their hardship to an extent which many of them are reaching at a point of mental
trauma.
2. Ethnicity, Poverty and policing.
It is very important to understand the relationship between poverty and criminalisation.
Police as an institution of the state always having watch on its citizen’s activities and it
defines which crime is and which not a crime is at all. As goffman(2009) pointed out there is
already a notion existing in the society that the poor people are engaging in more crimes than
the rich people and we gives a reason from an economic perspective. From this stand point,
police are making more surveillance measures in the places where poor people are living. In
the case of Chicago, race and wealth is matters a lot. The discrimination in the name of race
is also contributing much to this situation.
The people of colour were always under the surveillance of police and they had seen as
‘criminals’. The situation was worst to an extreme that one in four black children in born in
1990 had a father imprisoned. This expansion of incarceration is increased by increase in
policing in the places where African Americans are living. The forms of supervision and
policing found in the black neighbourhood foster a climate of fear and suspicion in which
people are pressured to inform on one another (goffman, 2009). The shooting happened in

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Ferguson, police shooting in Chicago on black people are also comes under the process of
criminalisation of a certain section of society.
The extremeness of this criminalisation was visible even in the instructions given by the
institute. There university of Chicago is lying as a north-south divide, where south is
accumulated by the black people. The south portion of Chicago is infamous for gun violence
and robbery. Therefore, the first instruction for the exchange students was that not to go to
the south part of the city and even the field work hasn’t allowed in that corner. The reason
was there is notion among people that south region is the hub of criminals in the city. In this
situation, over policing is happening in this region and many innocent people are arrested in
the name of suspect. What are the consequences of getting arrested and even the person got
acquitted. Imprisoned or formerly imprisoned men have difficulties participating in sustained
ways in the lives of their families, their families become socially and economically
disadvantaged in this process (Mclanahan 2004) Thus, criminalisation also contributes to
sustenance of poverty.
3. Migration: Cross boundary migration, problem of refugees, undocumented citizens
In USA, the migration is subject to interstate and cross boundary migration. Every year US
president declares the number of refugees, visitors and immigrants they will accept for that
year from various countries. These are voluntary migrants. Apart from this legal immigration,
there is a larger rate of cross boundary migration from the countries like Cuba and Mexico.
Such people are considered as illegal immigrants. There is third category of migrant
population that is refugees. These refugees are the survivors of war and conflicts who find
relief and rehabilitation in USA through government initiatives and United Nations. They can
also be called as forced migrants.
Worldwide, people migrate with some or the other purpose. There are push and pull factors
of migration. Push factors that observed in Chicago were the man-made disasters like war,
poor infrastructure in the home countries of people, inadequate career opportunities and
lesser wages. The push factors for getting attracted towards USA were observed as improved
lifestyle, better infrastructure, and good quality of education, higher amount of remuneration
at work, liberal culture and better career prospects. When the students visited the organization
Asian Americans Advancing Justice, parents of the people who have migrated to USA had
come for English learning classes. The woman among them said that though it’s a different

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place with different kind of people, they come so far only for betterment of their children.
This was another cohort of people who migrate to another country to stay with their family
member who is an immigrant.
The issue of cross boundary migration results in to the issue of undocumented citizens who
get trapped in USA for rest of their life because they don’t have any documents to go back to
their own country. They face a lot of challenges to find housing and education. Students have
interacted with undocumented citizens who are undocumented since a generation and more.
The migrants contribute to cheap labour in USA. All the jobs like train motormen, bus
drivers, security guard, sweepers and similar work positions were performed by African
Americans or Mexicans in USA. No white man or women were observed who are engaged in
these jobs.
Chicago is racially diverse and it is well segregated. Downtown is occupied mainly by
whites, uptown is occupied by Asians and Mexicans and south is occupied by African
Americans and Mexicans. There is hatred towards African Americans by Whites and Asians.
Asians are considered as good migrants who mainly work in hotels and restaurants. Though
the undocumented citizens and refugees are well educated like doctors, professors and
lawyers; they have to take up the jobs of lowest rug in USA that are available. They can’t get
employment as per their profession. Thus the migration leads to further social problems such
as hostility among host population towards migrants, resource constraints and unjust
government policies towards migrants which lead to nothing but the issue of secondary
citizenship.
Suggestion for CODP Program
 The suggestion is not only for the CODP program; instead it is applicable to the
curriculum of all TISS. In many of the instances, it was really felt that professors in TISS
are only teaching from a particular perspective while talking about the development or
social problems. To be explicit, a Marxian perspective in each and every concept the
students have learned. But the difference in the University of Chicago was the space for
the conceptual and philosophical diversity. For example, in the class of Global
development and social welfare, the teacher was presenting four philosophical
understanding of development and its critiques rather than pressurising the student to

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keep a rigid perspective. Therefore it would be suggested to the teachers to build a
curriculum in TISS which can be comprised various dimension of a particular issue.
 Classes of shorter duration with lecture and discussion
The classroom experience in University of Chicago was very interesting and engaging.
The duration of the class used to be for two hours out of that first or last 30 minutes used
to be reserved for open group discussion which used to be initiated by students. They
have a system called chalk where all course material is uploaded like TISS has Moodle.
The students are supposed to read few articles from suggested ones through the chalk
before the class. There is a concept of ‘op-ed’ which is a graded assignment. These ‘op-
eds’ are assigned to a couple of students together from the class at a time in each week.
These students are supposed to read all the articles on the topic which is going to be
taught to put forward arguments and conduct discussions on the same with other students
in those 30 minutes. It ensures the sharing of knowledge and different perspectives about
the same concept which enhances learning and stimulates thinking.
 The co-ordinator in Chicago Ms. Cristina and the students who came to India were very
hospitable, caring and helped the Indian students every time during the stay in Chicago.
They should also get similar experience in India. Indian students didn’t really have to
spend on anything. Every expenses related to the exchange programme was taken care by
Uchicago. Similarly, not everything but some sort of financial assistance and better
facilities according to their culture should also be made available in India when Uchicago
students come here as guest. It is voluntary for them to be part of the student exchange
programme with TISS and they willingly spend a significant amount of money on
everything including airfare, food and accommodation in TISS. They also work hard to
earn for themselves while they study. It is recommended to Centre for CODP to look into
same and give foreign students some amount of financial assistance while they stay in
India so that they should also feel as good and cared as Indian students felt in Chicago.