The Social Justice Learning Objectives in the table below were proposed by the PhD Social Justice Committee and adopted by the PhD Program Committee in May 2010. Students and Faculty implement these learning objectives in all programmatic aspects of the PhD Program: both curricular and extracurricular activities. This tool has many potential uses, including:

  • Increasing accountability among faculty and students to ensure social justice is brought to the forefront.
  • Offering some common language and consensus around programmatic objectives for the training of scholars promoting social justice.
  • Providing guidance to individual faculty and students when forming objectives for teaching and/or learning.
  • Providing support to faculty/students engaged in social justice work by acknowledging its value and centrality to scholarship, teaching, and service.
  • Providing opportunities for reflection and/or feedback to individual students on their path toward socially just scholarship.
  • Gathering feedback about how well the program is achieving its mission and/or monitoring progress toward it.
  • Guiding a deeper implementation of our mission through thoughtful incorporation of these objectives into training opportunities and educational milestones (admissions application, comprehensive exams, advising checklist, individualized learning plans, general exams, and dissertation defenses). 

Broad Understanding:

Scholarship (Publications, Presentations, Grants, Professional Dissemination)

  1. Cultivate a working knowledge of major theories of social justice (across disciplines, historical contexts, and communities) and their implications for social welfare scholarship.
  2. Develop capacity to assess and communicate how social welfare research, policies, and practices can both empower and oppress communities they are purported to serve.
  3. Develop reflective practices to understand self as a scholar given positionality in the context of power dynamics.

Teaching (Instruction, Training, Mentoring, Supervising)

  1. Demonstrate a commitment to integrating diverse teaching/mentoring methods.
  2. Understand how historical and contemporary education policies have shaped social work education in ways that oppress, liberate, and transform the classroom and the profession.
  3. Articulate teaching philosophy that reflects social justice values.

University, Professional & Community Service (Boards, Committees, Consultation, Practice, Advocacy, Peer Review)

  1. Articulate approaches to building and engaging in just partnerships.
  2. Reflect upon the impact of identity, power, and the privilege of the academy in service work.
  3. Advocate for an institutional definition of service that values work both within and outside the academy.

Substantive Area

Scholarship (Publications, Presentations, Grants, Professional Dissemination)

  1. In chosen area of interest, understand dominant paradigms and critiques that center social justice across multiple levels of investigation, translation, and dissemination.
  2. Identify and articulate social justice goals and implications of individual research program and applications for the profession.

Teaching (Instruction, Training, Mentoring, Supervising)

  1. Incorporate social justice content into instruction within teaching specialty. 
  2. Gain and develop a working knowledge of positionality, biases, and beliefs that may influence teaching, mentoring, and/or supervising to improve capacity to work effectively across difference.

University, Professional & Community Service (Boards, Committees, Consultation, Practice, Advocacy, Peer Review)

  1. Know systems/structures in area of interest and confront associated disparities and injustices that perpetuate oppression/marginalization.
  2. Build and maintain constructive relationships with communities in area of interest to bridge gap between research and practice.
  3. Honor community priorities and wisdom in the academy and use appropriate academy resources to catalyze community goals.

Methods

Scholarship (Publications, Presentations, Grants, Professional Dissemination)

  1. Demonstrate and apply critical inquiry into uses/misuses of research methods and articulation of just methodology.
  2. Seek out, identify, and work to enhance transformative potential of chosen research tools.
  3. Understand social justice implications and issues present throughout each stage of the research process.

Teaching (Instruction, Training, Mentoring, Supervising)

  1. Design learning objectives and implement instructional strategies that promote critical thinking.
  2. Create instructional spaces that are engaging, inclusive, responsive, liberatory, and non-oppressive.
  3. Solicit student feedback and strive to continuously improve instruction from a social justice perspective.
  4. Effectively facilitate group dynamics around issues of power and oppression in the classroom.

University, Professional & Community Service (Boards, Committees, Consultation, Practice, Advocacy, Peer Review)

  1. Learn strategies for collegial and responsible engagement.
  2. Assume leadership roles with humility and thoughtfulness.
  3. Participate in public discourse (i.e., alternative media, popular press, local speaking).
  4. Approach and engage people with awareness of your own positionality and cultural lens.