Overview

Description

CALENDAR DESCRIPTION:

An examination of the impact of social diversity on schooling in Canada exploring contemporary issues and perspectives on diversity education as they relate to cultural, ethnic, racial, linguistic, religious, economic, and gender differences.

COURSE DETAILS:

Critical equity studies, inclusive education, critical disability studies, social justice, and critical race theories challenge the historical marginalization of minoritized communities within and across systems. With this in mind, the course adopts critical social justice (Sensoy & DiAngelo, 2017[1]), an equity-based, inclusive education, disability studies, and critical race theory (DisCrit) (Annamma et al., 2013[2]; Kozleski et al., 2020[3]) approaches to diversity in education. This means that the suggested textbook, readings, and course assignments introduce frameworks and practices foundational for identifying and disrupting inequities to design inclusive and equitable social systems and relationships. The offered course materials and assignments embrace human differences by challenging ableist, colonial, gendered, classist, linguistic, and racial mechanisms and processes that perpetuate injustices in education. Thus, the course is anchored in critical social justice, equity-based inclusive education, intersectionality, decolonial, equity, post-feminism, and critical disability studies scholarship. The course’s key questions to consider will include but are not limited to:

• How do our own identities and positionality shape our understanding of and engagement with human diversity and social justice?
• How do systemic inequities manifest in everyday life?
• What does it mean to embrace critical, equity-driven social justice lens?

[1] Sensoy, O., & DiAngelo, R. (2017). Is everyone really equal?: An introduction to key concepts in social justice education. Teachers College Press.

[2] Annamma, S. A., Connor, D., & Ferri, B. (2013). Dis/ability critical race studies (DisCrit): Theorizing at the intersections of race and dis/ability. Race Ethnicity and Education, 16(1), 1-31.

[3] Kozleski, E. B., Stepaniuk, I., & Proffitt, W. (2020). Leading through a critical lens: The application of DisCrit in framing, implementing and improving equity driven, educational systems for all students. Journal of Educational Administration, 58(5), 489-505.

COURSE-LEVEL EDUCATIONAL GOALS:

• Define and critically examine key concepts in critical social justice, such as -ism, power, privilege, oppression, equity, ableism, and intersectionality among others.
• Develop awareness of one’s own positionality and its impact on perceptions of and interactions with social justice issues.
• Apply critical social justice, equity-based frameworks to analyze real-world issues and propose solutions.

Grading

Materials

MATERIALS + SUPPLIES:

• Required textbook: Sensoy, Ö. & DiAngelo, R. (2017). Is everyone really equal? An introduction to key concepts in social justice education, 2^nd Teachers College Press
• Other required readings, video, and audio that are not available through the SFU library will be provided digitally via Canvas.
• A computer, headphones, access to the Internet and software for reading, listening, writing, and viewing electronic sources will be crucial for participation in the course.

REQUIRED READING NOTES: