Class Descriptions

Intergroup Dialogues/Diversity, Dialogues & Social Justice

SW752

Credits:	1
Prerequisites:	None

Pathway Associations

Community Change	Elective (Host)
Global
Interpersonal Practice	Elective
Mgmt & Leadership
Policy & Political
Program Evaluation
Older Adults
Children & Families

Course Description

This course is designed to increase students awareness, knowledge, and understanding of issues related to diversity and social justice, including race, ethnicity, class, gender, religion, sexual orientation, age, ability status, and the intersections between these social identity groups. Additionally, students will gain an understanding of dialogue as a method for peacefully resolving conflict that may emerge due to cultural misunderstandings or oppressive dynamics, as well as skills for effectively engaging in dialogue. The topics of this course include social identity development; difference and dominance and the nature of social oppression; our personal and interpersonal connections to power, privilege, and oppression; understanding and resolving conflicts or resistance; the process of dialogue and coalition building across differences; and its applications in multicultural social work settings.

Objectives

1. Students will learn how to engage in dialogue with others about cultural diversity and social justice across our differences, using respectful and inquisitive forms of active listening, self-reflection, and critical consciousness.
2. Students will develop a clear understanding of multiple social identities (i.e., race, class, gender, sexual orientation, religion, age, ability status, age), as well as an understanding of the many ways that our multiple identities intersect to create remarkably diverse identity groups.
3. Students will understand what the dynamics of difference and dominance/oppression are (e.g., systems of inequity and inequality, power and status differences, and relative differences in power/privilege or oppression), and how they impact human functioning and social relations within and across diverse groups. In addition, students will understand how structural differences in society are shaped by historical, psychological, social, and political factors.
4. Students will develop critical awareness of how the beliefs, feelings, and behaviors that emerge from our multiple identities (and their corresponding experience with dominance or oppression) enhance or hinder our abilities to work with diverse and disenfranchised groups.

Intensive Focus on Privilege, Oppression, Diversity and Social Justice (PODS)

This course integrates PODS content and skills with a special emphasis on the identification of theories, practice and/or policies that promote social justice, illuminate injustices and are consistent with scientific and professional knowledge. Through the use of a variety of instructional methods, this course will support students developing a vision of social justice, learn to recognize and reduce mechanisms that support oppression and injustice, work toward social justice processes, apply intersectionality and intercultural frameworks and strengthen critical consciousness, self-knowledge and self-awareness to facilitate PODS learning.