The Learning Outcomes

The proposed learning outcomes fall into three skill categories: knowledge, analysis and interpretive skills, and intra- and interpersonal skills.

Knowledge

Students will:

  1. Know about the social constructions of identities created through legal, cultural, political, and historical practices.
  2. Understand the personal protections guaranteed by the US Constitution, its amendments, and legal code and how federal, state and local laws do and do not provide a foundation for equity and social justice.
  3. Know about social, political, and historical movements that shape and challenge systems of power, privilege, and oppression.
  4. Be able to identify the ways in which power differentials operate, are experienced, and are reinforced at individual, group, community, institutional, and global levels.
  5. Be able to identify the concerns of Indigenous populations and issues related to marginalization, sovereignty, and colonization within borders, territories, and other State boundaries.

Analysis and Interpretive Skills

Students will:

  1. Be able to identify, analyze, and evaluate the ways in which individuals and groups in the US have unequal experiences, access to opportunity, or life outcomes based on the intersections of race, gender, social class, citizenship, (dis)ability, indigeneity, sexual orientation, religion and creed, or other dimensions of difference.
  2. Be able to identify, analyze, and critique tropes, narratives, and other discursive strategies around race, gender, social class, citizenship, (dis)ability, indigeneity, sexual orientation, religion and creed, or other dimensions of difference.
  3. Be able to develop and support an argument that accounts for needs and concerns of marginalized groups reacting to systems of control and that brings to bear evidence from a range of sources, artifacts, and worldviews.
  4. Acknowledge and affirm cultural practices and artifacts that represent the pasts, the present, and the self-determined futures of communities other than their own.
  5. Analyze and critique the methods, goals, and actions of groups and individuals within movements towards political, social, and legal change.

Intra- and Interpersonal Skills

Students will:

  1. Will learn and employ communicative tools for the practice of civil discourse while seeking common ground in discussing concepts of diversity, inclusion, and equity.
  2.  Will be able to identify and challenge their implicit biases and inherited
    assumptions and will ask questions to understand backgrounds and perspectives different than their own.
  3. Will cultivate a growth mindset of openness and tolerance and be willing to stretch beyond their comfort while learning about their position in relationshipto others.
  4. Can practice relevant skills of civic engagement and can address equity and inclusion at different
    levels of advocacy.