SOCI2301: Communities and Social Justice

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• To enable students to examine critically the meaning and significance of "community" and "social justice" within a sociological framework,
• To explore and evaluate how people come together in groups, community organisations, coalitions and social movements for social justice, examining diverse strategies and tactics used for social, transformation, resistance and liberation in the UK and internationally.
• To offer students the opportunity to engage in community-oriented and collaborative learning, including dialogues, skills workshop, groupwork, and reflections on their own participation in activities related to communities and social justice.

• Exploration of the meaning and significance of "community" and "Social Justice" through engaging with relevant sociological, political, and philosophical literature.
• Exploration of concepts, such as communities of place, interest and identity; inter- and intra-community conflict, oppression and control; diversity, difference, intersectionality, privilege; repression, protest, civil disobedience, activism; human rights, justice, equality, equity and wellbeing.
• Critical examination of "social justice" in relation to theories of justice and notions of human flourishing, the common good, human rights, welfare states and societies.
• Institutional responses to developing socially just societies and living conditions through State and non-state actors.
• Examination of community-based practices and actions for social justice in the UK and internationally, such as community work (including community development and community organising), building social movements, conducting policy advocacy and public campaigns, engaging in protests, participating in transnational advocacy networks, and using the international human rights regime, to address issues such as climate justice, migrant and refugee protection, sexual orientation and gender identity rights, sexual and gender-based violence, education inequalities, and racism.
• Practice skills in developing strategies to respond to issues within communities including refining an issue, considering diverse perspectives and possible responses, strategizing, and building broad based movements.

Subject-specific Knowledge:

• Upon successful completion of this module, students will have demonstrated:
• An awareness of key debates related to communities and social justice.
• A critical understanding of how communities organise and advocate on a range of social justice issues.
• A critical understanding of a range of community-based policies, practices and actions for social justice-related change.

Subject-specific Skills:

• By the end of the module students should have demonstrated ability to:
• Articulate the contested nature of "community" and the role of community-based interventions and actions in working for socially just change.
• Develop their own sociologically informed arguments about contemporary issues in relation to communities and social justice.
• Deploy critical reasoning in relation to the strengths and weaknesses of specific theoretical and practical approaches.
• Reflect on their own roles in a group, how power is deployed, decisions made, work shared, and roles assigned.
• Communicate ideas and arguments persuasively, orally and in written form.
• Research and analyse a pressing social issue or problem and plan how to mount a community-based campaign for change.

Key Skills:

• By the end of the module students should have demonstrated ability to:
• Engage in reasoned argument.
• Relate theory to practice.
• Gather information from a variety of sources both bibliographic and electronic.
• Work collaboratively in a group, deploying skills in listening, clarifying, empathising, negotiating, seeking consensus and planning strategic actions.

• This module is based on 15 workshops teaching sessions of 2 hours each.
• Each student will receive 30 hours of staff contact time.
• Within any two-hour workshop session there will be a variety of modes of learning, including: mini-lectures, group-based interactive exercises and learning activities, seminar-style discussions and debates. Seminar-style activities will be integrated into the 2-hour workshops, with students sometimes working in several different break-out groups.
• The main components of the integrated teaching sessions are indicated below:
• Mini-lectures offer an overview of key issues and debates, drawing on relevant literature, and helping to develop theoretical understanding and knowledge. These encourage students to develop skills of listening, selective note-taking and an appreciation of how information may be structured and presented to others.
• Small group tasks and exercises give students the opportunity to develop ideas, arguments and skills collaboratively, to develop communication and negotiation skills, reflect on their own contributions, their use of power, and how they support and relate to other students.
• Seminar-style discussions and debates provide the opportunity for students to present and develop their own understanding of relevant materials, encouraging them to develop transferable skills (e.g. oral communication, group work skills), subject specific skills (e.g. competence in using theoretical perspectives in sociology, the ability to formulate sociologically informed questions) and generic intellectual skills (e.g. judging and evaluating evidence, assessing the merits of competing arguments and explanations, making reasoned arguments). In planning, preparing and contributing to seminar-style discussions, students should develop organisational skills, together with other transferable skills (e.g. developing confidence in public speaking and presentation, managing group work, and using the material provided).
• Self-directed study, reading and preparation for the formative and summative assignments encourages students to learn about a particular topic in more depth, to engage with critiques and approaches in the literature and to apply theory to practice.
• The formative assignment will take the form of a prepared group presentation, that will enable students to work together to develop an initial strategy in response to a particular issue and share it with the wider group and tutor for feedback.
• The summative assignment will enable students to demonstrate their ability to relate the theoretical concepts to a practical strategy on a particular issue for a particular community, through their own individual written assignment.

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