Diversity in a Globalized World
Semana Tec, Gpo 105
Course Information
Course Title: Diversity in a Globalized World
Group: Gpo 105
Duration: 5 sessions (Semana Tec)
Schedule: Monday to Friday, 13:10 – 15:50
Location: Aulas 11201
Instructor
Bogdan Popescu
E-Mail: bgpopescu@tec.mx
Office Hours: By appointment
Course Description
Globalization made the world richer on average. Averages hide the interesting part. The same process that raised a country’s income closed particular factories, pushed particular people across borders, and left particular groups living apart. This week we go looking for those people and places in the data: who paid for competition from China, and where AI is landing now; what those losses did to politics; why people leave home, and what they send back; and finally, in Mexico, who lives next to whom.
Underneath runs a second course, about evidence. The same moves come up every day: a map that shows what an average hides, two economists reading one event in opposite ways, a pattern that three different stories would explain equally well. By Friday your team will have built an argument like this yourselves. No economics, statistics or programming is required. Make your maps and graphs in Excel, Tableau or — ideally — R, and use AI tools such as ChatGPT if they help, as long as you say so.
Learning Outcomes
Upon completion of this course, students will be able to:
- Describe the uneven geography of globalization — where trade shocks, migration, remittances, and AI exposure actually land — and explain why a national average often describes nobody.
- Explain the main mechanisms connecting economic change to political backlash, and distinguish economic from cultural accounts of populism.
- Explain why people migrate, why development can raise emigration before lowering it, and what the evidence says about migration and wages.
- Measure how unevenly two groups are distributed across a city, and say why the answer depends on the unit of analysis chosen.
- Read a claim critically — state what a figure asks you to believe, name what else could have produced it, and say what the data cannot show.
- Produce a short empirical report containing maps and graphs made with Excel, Tableau or R, with an interpretation written in their own words and an honest declaration of how AI was used.
The Sessions
| Day | Session | Question |
|---|---|---|
| Monday | The China Shock and AI | Who paid for globalization? |
| Tuesday | Populism and Democratic Erosion | What did those losses do to politics? |
| Wednesday | Migration — optional | Why do people leave, and what follows them back? |
| Thursday | Segregation | Do different people ever actually meet? |
| Friday | Final Presentations | What did your team find? |
Wednesday 16 September is Independence Day, so that session is optional.
Assessment
The final grade has four components:
- Team report — 40%
- Final presentation — 25%
- Reading quiz — 25%
- Contributions to class — 10%
Team report. In teams of three, you produce one report containing two to three maps, one simple graph, one more complex graph, an interpretation in your own words, and a table declaring your use of AI. Make the figures with any tool: Excel, Tableau or, ideally, R. Worked examples and the datasets are linked from the session pages. Due Friday at 13:10, the start of the final session: submit the report as a PDF, plus the file you made the figures in. Each student’s mark is the team’s mark, adjusted by team member evaluation.
How the report is marked. Out of the 40 points:
| Points | Full marks means | |
|---|---|---|
| The question | 6 | One specific question, answerable with the data you have |
| The figures | 10 | Two to three maps, one simple graph, one more complex graph — titled, labelled, sourced, readable |
| The interpretation | 12 | You say what each figure shows, in your own words, and what it means |
| What you cannot say | 8 | Who is counted, which unit, and one rival explanation you cannot rule out |
| AI and working file | 4 | The declaration table is complete, and your file opens and produces the figures |
The two largest rows are interpretation and limits. Good figures with nothing said about them do not pass.
Final presentation. Each team presents its report on Friday. Ten minutes, plus questions. Show your maps and say what they mean; do not read from the slide. Out of the 25 points:
| Points | Full marks means | |
|---|---|---|
| The question | 4 | Stated in one sentence, at the start |
| The figures, explained | 7 | You show a figure and talk the room through it |
| What you cannot say | 5 | You name the limitation that most threatens your own conclusion |
| Answering questions | 7 | Whoever made a choice can explain it — including where AI helped |
| Time and teamwork | 2 | Ten minutes, and everyone speaks |
Reading quiz. Twenty multiple-choice questions on the four required articles, five per article. Twenty minutes, on paper, closed book, at the start of Friday’s session.
Contributions to class. The average of attendance, participation in the in-class exercises, and progress on the report.
Worked Example Reports
Three finished reports built from this course’s data. They are the model for your own — open one before you write anything, and copy its structure. They were made in R, but the same structure works in any tool.
- The China Shock — three maps, a simple graph, a complex graph. The cleanest template.
- Whose jobs? — the same data asking a question the original authors did not.
- Ask or delegate? — global AI use, and an honest section on who the data actually describes.
What has to be yours is the question, the choice of variables, and the interpretation. The structure you may take.
Reading
Each session has one required article, listed on that session’s page. We read it together in the second half of the session, and you finish it at home if you need to. Given that this is a one-week intensive course the list is deliberately short. Every article is in the folder in English and in Spanish — read whichever you prefer. The required articles are in the shared readings folder.
A twenty-question quiz at the start of Friday’s session covers all four articles, and it is worth a quarter of your grade.
Software
Use any tool you are comfortable with: Excel, Tableau or R. R is recommended, and it is what the worked examples use. If you choose R, you will need R, RStudio and Quarto installed, or a free Posit Cloud account if the installation gives you trouble — it runs RStudio in your browser with nothing to install.
For R, each session page lists optional slide decks from the research workshop. Between them they cover everything the report needs and nothing more: loading a data file, making a graph, making a map, and splitting a graph into panels. The workshop’s statistics and regression decks are not part of this course.
Use of AI
You may use AI tools such as ChatGPT in this course, and you must declare it. Every report ends with a short table naming what you used it for, what you asked, and how you checked the answer.
Two rules apply throughout. Never submit code, figures or prose you cannot explain — you will be asked. And use AI for the mechanical parts, not the judgement: fixing an error message is a good use, deciding what your research question is or what your map means is not.