...
Anchor program program
PAX 516 Program Evaluation Through Qualitative Research (3 SH)
| program | |
| program |
This course helps blended course is designed to help undergraduate and graduate students understand and practice the implementation of program evaluation through the methodologies of qualitative research. Historic and contemporary sociological and anthropological approaches (Western and Indigenous) will provide the theoretical and philosophical background for our work, but the focus will be on practical applications of qualitative methodology in evaluation. Students Students will practice conducting structured and semi-structured interviews, focus group interviews, coding interview transcripts, and will practice designing an evaluation, which includes : working with a client, determining appropriate methods, collecting data, analyzing the data, interpreting the data, and communicating the findings. This course complements, but does not take the place of other research and evaluation courses that focus entirely on either research or evaluation.
The course format is participatory, experiential , and adaptive. Students will conduct an actual professional evaluation of an on-going program; consequently, students will find themselves leading and/or participating in processes with which they have no prior experience. Further, the syllabus, readings , and assignments may need to be adapted to meet the changing needs of the program. The course involves a significant amount of group work; each participant is advised to consider that requirement in relation to personal obligations, distance from campus, ease of meeting with other students and individual willingness to participate in a work team.
This course explores will be exploring ideas and experiences that have caused harm and traumagenic responses in people’s lives and communities when developing the program evaluation with the client. With this in mind, the course we will utilize be utilizing a Trauma-Informed Classroom Care Model [Cless, J. D. & Goff, B. 2017. Teaching trauma: A model for introducing traumatic materials in the classroom. Advances in Social Work, 18(1), 25-38.]. Elements of this model include:
- Trauma Exposure - Course objectives may expose students to elements of trauma and trigger traumatic stress.
- Reactions to Trauma - How a student responds to traumagenic information or events varies from student to student and depends on personal history. This course will utilize three phases of trauma recovery: Safety, Remembrance and Mourning, and Reconnection (integration).
- Student Disclosure of Trauma - Students have the opportunity to disclose personal experiences of trauma in a variety of ways. These might include: individual meeting with the instructor, during on-campus discussions, or in writing through personal reflection, email, writing/class assignments.
- Flexibility - Students with higher levels of reactivity to course content will be met with a higher level of flexibility.
- Course Progression - The instructor will inform students of the topics and progression of the course.
- Assessment - Assessments are used to not only measure progress toward stated objectives and student learning but also monitor student reactivity. This will be done through weekly warm-ups, reflection papers, circle processes, and projects.
PrerequisitePre-requisite: PAX 535 Research Methods for Social Change (graduate students) ; or permission of the instructor.
This course includes upper level undergraduate students and is offered every other year.
Anchor auditonly auditonly
PAX 520 - PAX 529 (AUDIT ONLY)
| auditonly | |
| auditonly |
...
Foundations 1 and 2 give an overview of social justice and peacebuilding practice and its multi-disciplinary, multi-level aspects. This course, Foundations 1, addresses personal, interpersonal, small group, and organizational-level conflict transformation and social change. Foundations 1 will center on personal formation, basic action research, analysis for understanding conflict and injustice, peacebuilding and justice practice, theories of change, practitioner roles, essential skills and processes in our work, and basic process design.
Foundations 2 focuses on communal and societal levels of conflict and social change, centering on critical theory, analysis, power, structural and macro-level engagement, larger group processes, process design and more. See the Foundations 2 syllabi for course options or discuss options with your academic advisor.
Whether you take one or both courses, you will integrate personal formation including self-awareness, critical self-assessment, self-management and self- and communal care, ethical application of theory, technical utilization of research and analysis tools, and systematic processes of planning and implementation for intervention or action across many sectors and at different levels of society.
Foundations 1 is constructed to assist you to integrate these vital elements - personal formation, theory, research, analysis and practical skills and processes – into your justice work and peacebuilding practice. You will be introduced to basic literature and theory of the fields; explore conflict transformation from an individual, interpersonal and organizational community level; consider the dynamics of conflict and injustice, and experience the practice of peacebuilding through reading and discussions, video lectures and other engagements, group work, and interactive case study.
Skills competencies are emphasized in the areas of personal formation, conflict analysis and assessment, communication, construction of theories of change, strategies for intervention in interpersonal, intra-and intergroup conflicts, and basic process design. Basic processes that help structure conversations (such as negotiation, mediation and facilitation), nonviolent social action, accompaniment and coaching strategies as well as informal and other transformative processes are highlighted and can be practiced. This course employs the action-reflection learning cycle as the undergirding educational framework throughout the semester.
Foundations 1 cannot be taken for reduced credit or for professional education/training. Foundations 1 cannot be taken for reduced credit or for professional education/training and is required for all CJP students (unless they have taken PAX 533 Analysis: Understanding Conflict and PAX 532 Formation for Peacebuilding Practice)Those students enrolling in the BA to MA program will register in the PXD 494 section of the course.
Anchor research research
PAX 535 Research Methods for Social Change (3 SH)
| research | |
| research |
Leaders of peacebuilding and justice building require critical knowledge of research methods to design research projects that support social change. To this end, this course focuses on research design that centers the role of identity, power, worldview and context in the entire research process. This course opts for qualitative methods, because those are used more often in the field than quantitative methods. In addition, this course will introduce quantitative and mixed methods research so that students may be able to better read, interpret, and/or design appropriate studies depending on their aim. This 3-credit course is required for all MA students, and is not available for reduced credit or professional development/training. In addition to this course, students will be strongly advised to take one of the existing applied research project courses or complete a research project as part of another course or their practicum placement.
...
Whether working in advocacy, healthcare, education, government, care-giving, activism, or in any kind of leadership or community building capacity, stressors add up - particularly in this pandemic. Research and experience demonstrate that unaddressed trauma often leads to conflict and violence against self or with others, as trauma-affected people act out against others or become self-destructive. STAR combines theory with experiential learning to increase awareness of the impacts of trauma on the body, brain, beliefs and behaviors. The course offers tools for addressing trauma and breaking cycles of violence.
STAR’s multi-disciplinary framework draws on several fields of theory and practice to support healthy, resilient individuals and communities: trauma and resilience studies (including neurobiology), restorative justice, conflict transformation, human security, and spirituality. STAR centers participants’ experience and insights, while offering activities, resources, and a theoretical model to support a journey toward understanding and interrupting cycles of violence at the individual, communal and societal levels.
Learn more about STAR on the STAR website!
View Syllabus section A
View Syllabus section B
...
Organizations and their leaders can play a critical role in mitigating societal stressors, and organizations are locations where social conflicts can be transformed and injustices can be addressed effectively. Participants will review a range of organizational leadership theories and practices, identifying various approaches to leading people, systems, and organizations in ways that bring restoration, offer hope, and work toward promoting the common good. Class focus will be on examining key equity drivers and their application in the work setting. The course will hold the tension between issues raised by critical theory and the approaches espoused by practitioners of appreciative inquiry and will encourage students to manage the polarity created by these approaches as an important transformational practice. This class is a core requirement for all MATL students.
...
This course provides a critical examination of the values, principles, and practices of restorative justice. It provides a unique opportunity to explore the philosophy of restorative justice from various perspectives, and as it is applied in various contexts. Our primary starting point is the U.S. criminal legal system and the problems posed by its dominant responses to harm and violence. We examine how restorative justice presents a contrasting philosophy of justice that addresses the needs of multiple stakeholders, draws from faith-based and indigenous approaches, and challenges interpersonal and structural forms of harm. We also explore intersections and applications of restorative justice with multiple fields and movements including racial justice, trauma healing, education, youth development, and transitional justice.
Fall 2020's iteration of the course will be taught in an asynchronous format via Voice Thread.
This is a core requirements for MA in Restorative Justice students. This course is offered every fall and in the Summer Peacebuilding Institute.
...
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 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 “‘Research Justice’ is achieved when communities reclaim and access all forms of knowledge to affect change between community voices and those of institutions.” [1]
Emancipatory peacebuilders, academics, and broader social justice movements use research to illuminate obscured relationships between power and oppression, cultivate stories, identify theories of change, and document histories and cultures of resilience and persistence. However, the dominant Euro-Western research methods and methodologies many practitioners learn often replicate the very paradigms and power relationships those in the justice and peacebuilding field seek to displace. Consequently, only certain forms of knowledge are valued and sought out, which effectively subjugates indigenous and community-based ways of knowing and being. Therefore, this required 3-credit course for all MA candidates equip students with expansive and justice-oriented qualitative research skills that offer pathways to advance social change.[2] Ultimately, this course is designed to invite all to explore their curiosities through inquiry in pursuit of a world with more justice and more peace.
[1] DataCenter for Research Justice. (2015). An introduction to research justice [PDF], p. 6. Retrieved from http://www.datacenter.org/new-toolkit-an-introduction-to-research-justice/.
[2] This course is not available for reduced credit or professional development. In addition to this course, students will be strongly advised to take one of the existing applied research project courses or complete a research project as part of another course or their practicum placement.
Anchor starone starone
PAX 540 STAR Level 1 (2-3 SH)
| starone | |
| starone |
Whether working in advocacy, healthcare, education, government, care-giving, activism, or in any kind of leadership or community building capacity, stressors add up - particularly in this pandemic. Research and experience demonstrate that unaddressed trauma often leads to conflict and violence against self or with others, as trauma-affected people act out against others or become self-destructive. STAR combines theory with experiential learning to increase awareness of the impacts of trauma on the body, brain, beliefs and behaviors. The course offers tools for addressing trauma and breaking cycles of violence.
STAR’s multi-disciplinary framework draws on several fields of theory and practice to support healthy, resilient individuals and communities: trauma and resilience studies (including neurobiology), restorative justice, conflict transformation, human security, and spirituality. STAR centers participants’ experience and insights, while offering activities, resources, and a theoretical model to support a journey toward understanding and interrupting cycles of violence at the individual, communal and societal levels.
Learn more about STAR on the STAR website!
View Syllabus section A
View Syllabus section B
Anchor socialchange socialchange
PAX 568 Transformational Leadership for Social Change (3 SH)
| socialchange | |
| socialchange |
Complex, dynamic and frequently chaotic environments are the norm for today’s leaders. Few if any leaders have the luxury of predictability or equilibrium. Instead leaders must develop the ability to maximize opportunities and leverage uncertainty. In this course we pair Appreciative Inquiry with Critical Theory approaches to learn about balancing the contradictory impulses of disruption and integration. We will unpack some value-loaded terms: social justice, peace, negotiation, organization, equity, empathy, ethics, reconciliation, sustainability and social change; and conceptualize the “Lead Together” mission of EMU. Together we explore the forward reaching capacities that leaders need in order to thrive amidst the paradox and turbulence of the future.
This class is a core requirement for all MATL students.
Anchor rjprinciples rjprinciples
PAX 571 Restorative Justice: Principles, Theories & Applications (3 SH)
| rjprinciples | |
| rjprinciples |
This course provides a critical examination of the values, principles, and practices of restorative justice. It provides a unique opportunity to explore the philosophy of restorative justice from various perspectives, and as it is applied in various contexts. Our primary starting point is the U.S. criminal legal system and the problems posed by its dominant responses to harm and violence. We examine how restorative justice presents a contrasting philosophy of justice that addresses the needs of multiple stakeholders, draws from faith-based and indigenous approaches, and challenges interpersonal and structural forms of harm. We also explore intersections and applications of restorative justice with multiple fields and movements including racial justice, trauma healing, education, youth development, and transitional justice.
This is a core requirements for MA in Restorative Justice students. This course is offered every fall and in the Summer Peacebuilding Institute.
Anchor globaldev globaldev
PAX 585 Global Development (3 SH)
| globaldev | |
| globaldev |
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 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 is one of several seminar courses that are geared primarily to second year graduate students at the Center for Justice & Peacebuilding. They require that a student have taken Foundations 1 & 2 unless otherwise noted. These seminar courses will be capped at 15 students, with up to 18 students with special instructor permission. Students from other graduate programs should meet with the professor to determine the suitability of the course for their learning goals. In order to participate in this particular advanced seminar, students will be required to have completed either PAX 534 Foundations 1 (offered by CJP) OR OLS 530 Organizational Behavior (offered byEMU’s Organizational Leadersthip Leadership program).
Anchor foundationstwo foundationstwo
PAX 634 Foundations for Justice & Peacebuilding 2 (6 SH)
| foundationstwo | |
| foundationstwo |
...
Anchor circle circle
PAX 672 Circle Processes (1 SH)
| circle | |
| circle |
This course will introduce participants to the peacemaking circle process and explore:
- foundational values and philosophy of peacemaking circles,
- conflict as opportunity to build relationships,
- creating safe, respectful space for dialog
- consensus decision making,
- structure of the circle process,
- facilitation of the circle process
- practical applications of circle process,
- problems and challenges in circles.
This course will use the peacemaking circle process as the primary form of group work.
This course is intended to provide experience in the circle process as well as an understanding of the foundational values and key structural elements for designing and conducting peacemaking circles. The class will prepare students to design and facilitate peacemaking circles in a variety of situations.
3 SH version of this class is offered 3 SH version of this class is offered during our annual Summer Peacebuilding Institute (www.emu.edu/cjp/spi/).
...
Restorative Justice originated as a practice-based discipline. However, the field has experienced exponential growth in the theory and research of RJ in the last decade. The course will be framed by four essential values of RJ: encounter, amends, reintegration and inclusion. The content of the course will be embedded in the key practice models that drive the Restorative Justice field – VOC/VOD, FGC, and Circle Processes. The class will also explore structural applications of RJ practice in the workplace, schools, prisons, dealing with historical harms, and in transitional justice processes globally. Conducted in a seminar format, students will have ample lab time to exercise the skills, complete assignments that are directly related to in-field competencies (e.g. policy reviews, writing program concept and funding documents, facilitating training sessions and engaging in self and peer assessments), as well as grapple with the theory and ethics that drive RJ practice. For MA in Conflict Transformation students this course satisfies the skills assessment course requirement if taken for 3 credits. It is a required course for all students enrolled in the MA and Certificate in Restorative Justice programs. PAX 571 Restorative Justice is a prerequisite for this class unless special permission granted.
...
The recent expansion of the Restorative Justice (RJ) field is almost breathtaking. We are now seeing an exponential volume of research, writing and practice exploding on the scene. This is exciting on one hand, daunting on another. There is general consensus that RJ as a field is at the edge of a totally new level of impact and influence. While controversial, many leaders in the field feel that RJ will either fade away, or be co-opted by the legal system as long as we view it as only one more "social service reform.” However, if we understand it as a “social justice movement” and study and apply it as such it has a great potential for both serious interpersonal and structural transformation. This course is geared toward empowering RJ practitioners and thinkers who are prepared to position themselves (both internally and externally) as change agents for political, legal and social justice systems shifts. Through intensive reading, structured debates, tailor-made research on critical and emerging RJ issues, and interaction with leaders in the field, we will explore whole system applications of RJ in public violence contexts, in realigning societal institutions such as in schools, prisons, courts, and governance structures, and in post-war reconstruction efforts through hybrid transitional justice processes.
Each student is required to identify a particular “real-time” case scenario that they will use as their source material for developing a comprehensive whole systems RJ approach to structural change. The Emergent-Adaptive Systems model introduced and used in Foundations I & II, along with the work around Human Systems Dynamics (HSD) - www.hsdinstitute.org/ will provide the primary frameworks for this course. Key terms and concepts that will be utilized to guide our thinking are:
- Chaos, disorganization & self-organizing theory
- Social capital networks and interdependencies (Network Weaving)
- Coalition building, social mobilization, and social movement theory & practice
- Systemic inputs & outputs, and
- Structural Information & Communication feedback loops.
The course is facilitated in a high-flex seminar format (both in-person and online) using student-led reading summaries & discussions, progressive portfolio presentations, group analysis & brainstorming (e.g. a think-tank model) and virtual interaction with various practice leaders in the fields of emergent-adaptive systems and restorative justice, prisons, dealing with historical harms, and in transitional justice processes globally. Conducted in a seminar format, students will have ample lab time to exercise the skills, complete assignments that are directly related to in-field competencies (e.g. policy reviews, writing program concept and funding documents, facilitating training sessions and engaging in self and peer assessments), as well as grapple with the theory and ethics that drive RJ practice. For MA in Conflict Transformation students this course satisfies the skills assessment course requirement if taken for 3 credits. It is a required course for all students enrolled in the MA and Certificate in Restorative Justice programs. PAX 571 Restorative Justice is a prerequisite for this class unless special permission granted.
Anchor rjapproaches rjapproaches
PAX 677 Restorative Justice & Whole Systems Approaches (3 SH)
| rjapproaches | |
| rjapproaches |
Restorative Justice has largely been applied to addressing interpersonal harms, that is to say, harm that results from the actions of private individuals. Yet many pervasive harms are carried out by governments or corporations - or individuals acting in the course of their formal institutional roles. Such past and ongoing harms include police violence, groundwater contamination, lung cancer, prison abuse, Native American boarding schools, housing discrimination, and civilian causalities in military operations. Moreover, institutional action and inaction can be regarded as contributing to all interpersonal harms or their root causes. This course will examine the relationship between institutional and interpersonal harms and dissect systemic harm as a product of the two. Through case study research and discussions, we will explore the potential role and limitations of restorative, transitional, and transformative justice principles and practices in building institutional accountability for systemic harms. As needed, we will imagine new frameworks and approaches.
This is one of several seminar courses that are geared primarily to second year graduate students in the Center for Justice & Peacebuilding. These seminar courses will be capped at 15 students, with up to 18 students with special instructor permission. Students from other graduate programs should meet with the professor to determine the suitability of the course for their learning goals. In order to participate in this advanced seminar, students will be required to have completed either the Foundations 1 and 2 courses (offered by CJP) OR for MAED students either PAX 571 or PAX 676. This course satisfies a core requirement for MA in RJ students.
...