2017 | 2018 Innovative Teaching Showcase

SHOWCASE INDEX | CIIA | WWU ISSUE 20

Engaging Social Justice
“People who use social justice as a signal for what their work engages with understand that inequities are produced, inequities are structured, and that things have got to change in order to achieve different educational outcomes. Social justice education is a choice away from pathology and linearity. … There is no future in the field of education without the contributions of people who are doing their work under the rising sign of social justice.""

– Toward What Justice,
Eve Tuck and K. Wayne Yang, eds.

Ideas

Idea #10: (in)Justices in the Academy

“Many individuals are drawn to higher education, including academic careers, because of academe’s potential for change ...Unfortunately, many colleges and universities in the U.S. have practiced outright discrimination and exclusion throughout history”1

Learning Intention

Academic institutions have both worked with and against moves for social justice.3 This activity helps students identify ways the academy has helped or hindered specific movements, and explore the roles students play in these (in)justices.2

Overview2

Are social justice movements working within, without, or against the academy—or perhaps a combination of all three? Explore this question using your personal experience, or through texts, blog posts, or articles that have emerged from your school community.

Choose an issue (perhaps even a current event that is happening on your own campus) to use as a case study. Have students discuss ways the academy supports or hinders movements toward social justice on that issue. The book Toward What Justice? includes a list of sample texts/videos and further questions for reflection.

Reflection Questions2

  • What is the issue or injustice, and how is the academy/university responding?
  • How might the academy uphold many of the problems social movements attempt to disrupt?
  • What does justice look like in academic institutions?
  • What SHOULD justice look like in academic institutions?
  • What role have students played in the issue or movement at the university?
  • Name some other examples of where the work of the academy supports or hinders justice movements.

References

  1. Ray, V. (ed.) (2018). Conditionally Accepted (blog), Inside Higher Ed. Available: https://www.insidehighered.com/users/conditionally-accepted.
  2. Tuck, E. & Yang, K.W. (eds.) (2018). Toward What Justice? Describing Diverse Dreams of Justice in Education. New York: Routledge.
  3. Lee, E. (2018). The Enactment of Social Justice through Teaching and Learning, Innovative Teaching Showcase, Center for Instructional Innovation and Assessment, Western Washington University. Available: http://cii.wwu.edu/showcase2017/