Social Justice Education : Inviting Faculty to Transform Their Institutions

This book addresses the combination of pedagogical, curricular, and institutional commitments necessary to create and sustain diversity on campus. Its premise is that the socially just classroom flourishes in the context of a socially just institution, and it invites faculty and administrators to create such classrooms and institutions.This book grew out of a project – involving deans and directors of teaching centers and diversity offices from six institutions – to instigate discussions among teachers and administrators about implementing socially just practices in their classrooms, departments, and offices. The purpose was to explore how best to foster such conversations across departments and functions within an institution, as well as between institutions. This book presents the theoretical framework used, and many of the successful projects to which it gave rise.Recognizing that many faculty have little preparation for teaching students whose backgrounds, culture, and educational socialization differ from theirs, the opening foundational section asks teachers to attend closely to their and their students’ relative power and positionality in the classroom, and to the impact of the materials, resources and pedagogical approaches employed. Further chapters offer analytical tools to promote inquiry and change.The concluding sections of the book demonstrate how intra- and inter-institutional collaborations inspired teachers to rise to the challenge of their campuses’ commitments to diversity. Among the examples presented is an initiative involving the faculty development coordinator, and faculty from a wide range of domains at DePauw University, who built upon an existing ethics initiative to embed social justice across the curriculum. In another, professors of mathematics from three institutions describe how they collaborated to create socially just classrooms that both serve mathematical learning, and support service learning or community-based learning activities. The final essay by a student from the Maldives, describing how she navigated the chasm between life in an American college and her family circumstances, will reinforce the reader’s commitment to establishing social justice in the academy.This book provides individual faculty, faculty developers and diversity officers with the concepts, reflective tools, and collaborative models, as well as a wealth of examples, to confidently embark on the path to transforming educational practice.