2024-2025 Academic Catalog

Nov 18, 2024

2024-2025 Academic Catalog

MPA 3311 - Historical and Contemporary Understandings of (In) Equities

In this course, participants develop a historical understanding of social (in)equity and analyze contemporary frameworks and issues in the field of Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (e.g., inclusive excellence). The course emphasizes inequality as structural and systemic. Students will learn about critical social theory rooted in experience and historical analysis to make sense of the overt and hidden systems that create the social order. Questions we consider: How do we explain the inequalities that are connected to race, class, gender, nation, religion, and other forms of difference? How does power and privilege work in the world? By the end of the course, students will be able to know/do the following:

Understand how inequality occurs.
Analyze and evaluate different contexts (schools, classrooms, non-profits) using critical social theory.
Reflect on the evolution of DEI (Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion), and the ways in which DEI has been shaped by socio-political movements and forces.
Understand equity or social justice frameworks.

Anticipated Terms Offered: Varied