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SWK 4306H – Theoretical Approaches to Defining Social Injustice and Engaging in Social Change - Required

As a core value in social work, this course examines epistemological and theoretical approaches to understanding social justice as they relate to social exclusion, marginalization, inequity, and oppression.

Through a framework of intersectionality, we will address interconnected social processes and conditions associated with: imperialism and colonization; poverty and classism; racism and whiteness; citizenship and statelessness; multiculturalism and nationalism; anti-Semitism and Islamophobia; sexism, heterosexism and homophobia; and ableism and disability.

This course will link personal knowledge with collective historical and institutional knowledges towards informing anti-oppression and decolonizing social work. Students will also explore how strategies for redressing various processes of injustice vary across socio-political contexts. Attention will be paid to how concepts can be engaged with, re-imagined, and inform/instill/incite the work of resistance and activism in social work.