The department is a lively community that is recognised internationally as one of the top centres for research and teaching in development studies.

Our courses offer excellent training for a career in international development or for advanced study, and attract students of the highest calibre from across the world.
“I had waited for 10 years before my dream to study in Oxford became a reality and the experience was truly beyond expectation”
Our students are taught to develop as critical and independent thinkers and when they leave us they are equipped with the knowledge and skills they need to bring about real change.
“My time at Oxford strengthened my critical analysis and provided me with a unique interdisciplinary grounding in history, politics and economics that has equipped me well in dealing with public policy issues and program development strategy.”
Our courses offer excellent training for a career in international development or for advanced study, and attract students of the highest calibre from across the world.
“I had waited for 10 years before my dream to study in Oxford became a reality and the experience was truly beyond expectation”
Our courses offer excellent training for a career in international development or for advanced study, and attract students of the highest calibre from across the world.
“I had waited for 10 years before my dream to study in Oxford became a reality and the experience was truly beyond expectation”
Our students are taught to develop as critical and independent thinkers and when they leave us they are equipped with the knowledge and skills they need to bring about real change.
“My time at Oxford strengthened my critical analysis and provided me with a unique interdisciplinary grounding in history, politics and economics that has equipped me well in dealing with public policy issues and program development strategy.”
Our students are taught to develop as critical and independent thinkers and when they leave us they are equipped with the knowledge and skills they need to bring about real change.
“My time at Oxford strengthened my critical analysis and provided me with a unique interdisciplinary grounding in history, politics and economics that has equipped me well in dealing with public policy issues and program development strategy.”
A new article from Young Lives quantifies the increase in physical domestic violence (family or intimate partner violence) experienced by young people aged 18–26 during the 2020 COVID-19 lockdowns in Peru.
To do this the authors use an indirect methodology – the double list randomisation experiment – which was embedded in a telephone survey to participants of their long-standing cohort survey.
The essence of the list experiment is to embed a sensitive statement amongst a list of other non-sensitive statements, and ask respondents only about how many statements they agree with. This offers a level of anonymity to responses to sensitive questions, potentially allowing individuals to provide more truthful answers than they might if asked directly about a sensitive topic.
The authors found that 8.3% of the sample experienced an increase in physical violence within their households during the lockdown period. Those who had already reported experiencing domestic violence in the last round of (in-person) data collection in 2016 werre more likely to have experienced increased physical violence during the COVID-19 lockdown, with 23.6% reporting an increase during this time.
The reported increase in violence does not differ significantly by gender. The article also concludes that list experiments, if carefully conducted, may be a relatively cheap and feasible way to elicit information about sensitive issues during a phone survey.
Read a blog post discussing the results.
Catherine Porter, Marta Favara, Alan Sánchez and Douglas Scott (2021) 'The impact of COVID-19 lockdowns on physical domestic violence: Evidence from a list randomization experiment', SSM - Population Health, DOI: 10.1016/j.ssmph.2021.100792