ETM 501 - Foundations of Social Justice Teaching

Credits: 3
This course challenges candidates to reflect on their individual beliefs in relationship to social justice teaching. Candidates will gain a comprehensive understanding of the historical struggles for equity and excellence in education. Using Freire’s (1970) philosophy of social justice teaching as a context, candidates will analyze their own relationship to issues related to gender, race, class, sexual orientation and disability and examine how these categories intersect to reproduce inequality. The concepts of social justice, race, ethnicity, culture, privilege, institutional racism, poverty and wealth will be explored. In addition, the course will explore the effect of public school students’ self-perceptions about how they are institutionally disenfranchised. This course will utilize approaches of multiple perspective-taking and self-actualization combined with educational theory to help candidates develop new approaches to their teaching and interactions that facilitate a positive reframing of student self-perception.