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Praxis Project is designed to be taken alongside another course to help students think through projects, programs, and/or interventions. Throughout the course, students will explore the MasterMind methodology and receive training in leading and participating in a MasterMind group, explore Human Systems Dynamics and the concept of “the next wise step,” and live into frameworks of leadership, group dynamics, and trauma-informed and resilient interpersonal engagement.
Praxis Project is a one - or two - credit pass/fail course; whether a student passes or fails is determined by whether a student attends course online sessions, whether assignments are turned in on time, and meet all requirements laid out in the assignment’s guidance note.
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This course introduces you to the field of global development through examining both the history of the field and the current debates and challenges faced by development practitioners. The purpose is to explore and critically evaluate the basic assumptions underlying the competing theories and current approaches towards alleviating poverty, structural violence, and global inequality. This course approaches the phenomenon of development in its broadest sense as the study of change, with attention to global justice, equity, and the historical links between development, colonialism, and global capitalism. In the course, we will explore what development means, how to measure it, and how to understand attempts to balance between economic, ecological, and equity concerns. The course engages the key propositions that emerge in contemporary development debates, and offers frameworks for evaluating theories, interventions and policies. With attention to power relations, we will consider critiques of the development project sensitive to race, gender, ecology and other political economy traditions, in dialogue with the dominant understanding of development as technical interventions for enhancing the market mechanism. This will provide a foundation for uncovering and assessing social and political structures, institutions, inequalities, and development policies as theories meet practice. [This course is cross-listed with undergraduate course PXD-485.]
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Is nonviolence effective for creating sustainable social change in the face of institutional, political, and violent resistance? How is the philosophy of nonviolence connected to nonviolent strategy and tactics? And can nonviolence still be relevant today? In this course, we look at the power of social movements to effect change using strategic nonviolence, including forms of protest and persuasion, noncooperation, and nonviolent intervention and direct action. We examine the theory, practice, history, and research behind nonviolence, and explore debates and criticisms about the efficacy of nonviolent social change. Our work will be grounded in a close study of the US Civil Rights Movement, as well as other social change movements from India to Serbia to South Africa, and recent movements from Occupy to Arab Spring to Black Lives Matter to Environmental Justice.
Through case studies and our own experiences, we will practice assessment, visioning, planning, and tactical skills, and also apply what we have learned to issues we care about. As we discuss whether nonviolence is “the way” or “one way” for us today, we will investigate the intersections of nonviolent social change with peacebuilding practices and social justice movements. Along with readings and classroom discussions and activities, we will engage with multimedia resources like film and music, and connect to real-life scenarios through individual and group research and presentations.
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Through a variety of readings, exercises and reflections, the course will assist participants’ formation as reflective practitioners enabling group processes. We will focus on developing self-awareness and awareness of group dynamics, while cultivating openness and offering a calm presence even in the midst of high levels of anxiety and conflict. We will consider a variety of facilitator roles and functions and critically assess the ethics and appropriateness of these for different types of situations, including with evident power imbalances and systemic oppression. While rooted in a North American peacebuilding paradigm, we will aim to also explore facilitation in other cultural traditions and raise awareness of the challenges of facilitating cross-culturally.
This course is designed for participants enrolled in CJP’s graduate studies program and presumes knowledge of basic conflict analysis and peacebuilding concepts and methods. As such, Foundations 1 or an equivalent course is preferred. This class qualifies as a skills assessment course for the CJP MA degrees.
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Action and struggle for justice and peacebuilding are always found in peoples’ local, place-based experiences, but to gain understanding in order to effect change, we have to explore their global features. To do this we will examine the intersections and overlaps among the local and the global, including the transnational solidarities that connect local struggles around the world. Students will become familiar with theories and frameworks that help explain the causes and dynamics of larger-scale conflicts, injustice, and structural violence. Students will work individually and in small groups to apply these ideas and skills to cases that progress in complexity from the community to the national and global levels (and back again). Students will also continue to develop their self-awareness as well as their capacity for professional judgment and reflective practice with attention to vocation, values, ethics, faith and spirituality. [This course is required for all MACT and MARJ students and is cross-listed with undergraduate course PXD-435.]Please note: for the 2023-2024 year academic year, PAX 635 plus a 3 credit hour course from an approved list will satisfy the Foundations 2 sequence.
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Strategies for Trauma Awareness and Resilience (STAR) Level 2 invites participants, who have completed STAR 1, to deepen their knowledge, skills, and confidence. The training invites participants to:
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The enneagram is a framework for understanding personal motivations for behavior and it can be used as an analytical and practical tool for helping us understand interpersonal conflict and what to do about it. This course will explore the enneagram, the factors that motivate conflict, how various enneagram types engage in conflict, and what can be done to address interpersonal conflict through knowledge of enneagram types. Whether you are in leadership, working with troubled personal relationships, serving as a practitioner, or working in a helping profession, this course will provide knowledge of the framework and ways of using it to address conflict.
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Many of the systems in which we live and work are dysfunctional, harmful and mired in conflict. One strategy for transforming them is through deliberative dialogue processes that engage the whole system: whether community, organization or society. Such processes can enable us to respond creatively to our most complex challenges and move us toward more equitable, just and positive relationships and structures. Through this class, we will explore how complexity and identity theories, conflict analysis, and power assessment inform collaborative process design. Using a series of mini-case studies, we will explore the complex interactions involved in adaptive and responsive design. We ask tough questions about what kind of processes are relevant for cultivating different phases and scales of change and explore ethics underpinning the praxis of process design rooted in awareness of our ‘positionality’ in the system. We will learn about many process methodologies such as Appreciative Inquiry, Courageous Conversations, Emergent Strategies, Narrative Practice, Open Space Technology, Polarity Management, Transformative Scenario Planning, Future Search, and others. We will critically explore their underlying theories of change and theories of practice in ways that enable participants to become more creative and astute process designers.
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Restorative Justice originated as a practice-based discipline. In the following decades, the field expanded to include theory and research of RJ. At the core of any restorative practice, is a focus on steps to identify and address harms while finding ways to bring healing and make amends. The course will be framed by four key values of RJ: inclusion, encounter, amends, and reintegration. The content of the course will be embedded in the foundational practice models that drive the Restorative Justice field like Victim Offender Conferencing/Dialogue, Family Group Conferencing, and Circle Processes. The class will explore structural applications of RJ philosophy, principles and practices in diverse situations: in educational settings, with justice-involved individuals, and among members of various communities who experience harm.
The emphasis throughout the semester is on each students’ development as a practitioner. Sessions are set up to introduce, discuss and showcase various practice models in a variety of settings. RJ professionals will share knowledge and expertise derived from years of practicing in their field. Students will derive competence through engagement of case studies, developing a resource toolbox, reflective assessment, peer and instructor feedback, engaging with professionals, and most importantly, practice as a facilitator.
For MA in Conflict Transformation students this satisfies the skills assessment course requirement if taken for 3 credits, and is a required course for all students enrolled in the MA and Certificate in Restorative Justice programs.
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Though peacebuilding definitions differ, the ultimate goal of peacebuilding is to put into place mechanisms for building peaceable societies and relationships. This course explores the aims of peacebuilding, how humanity has tried to bring about peace throughout history, and contemporary approaches. We will especially look at the contributions of civil society peacebuilding, and consider whether it reaches its goals contributing to social peace. We will hear stories from CJP alumni and partners as they explore the promise of peacebuilding in their context, with its successes, challenges, and possible next steps.
What is the Promise of Peacebuilding? Are we delivering on that promise? If so, how? If not, why not? The goal of the course is to expand knowledge about contemporary peacebuilding and make connections to people who are addressing violence and injustice in order to build durable peace. The course aims to help us become more familiar with the ways that civil society is contributing to the construction of peace when it has been its most successful, as well as when it has been ineffective at best or harmful at worst.
Note: This course will be being offered for the first time during the spring 2025 semester. It is one of the two classes that can fulfil a high-level Conflict Transformation program requirement for MA and GC students.
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Creativity and the arts have historically been connected to peace and conflict. Human communities have used creative and artistic techniques to harmonize self, community and nature, to witness and make sense of the world, process and express feelings and emotions, to enact power and agency, to signify the past, reflect on the present and imagine the future. Creativity and arts have also been used to promote violent conflict, and as vehicles of colonization and imperialism. Amidst these multiple roles, peacebuilding practitioners and artists have continuously engaged with creative and artistic creation seeking to foster peace, resist oppression, denounce violence and promote healing, with different levels of impact. The challenges posed by current interconnected crises such as increasing inequality, climate crisis, discrimination, oppressive power dynamics and shrinking social spaces demand creative innovations to respond to violence, ignite justice and cultivate peace.
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