Activism Beyond the Classroom

Catalog description

ACTIVISM BEYOND THE CLASSROOM (ABC) invites you to engage in participatory inquiry and public scholarship related to grassroots activism around education and social justice, in collaboration with Philadelphia community activists and one another. Together, we will explore how to form the coalition(s), theory, and praxes necessary to transform social conditions. In the first part of the course, we critically examine theories of power, resistance, and liberatory transformation to share knowledges and a build a critical vocabulary with which we will investigate the contested rhetorical and political terrain of our present moment. The notion of praxis, a guiding principle of the course, signals the processes through which "theory" is both embodied and realized. As such, in the second part of the course, we will experiment with how theory can be brought to bear on contemporary struggles around education--and, conversely, how the practices of activism can inform our learning, scholarship, and pedagogies. ABC is an Academically Based Community Service course supported by the Netter Center for Community Partnerships. Our work will crosscut three areas: (1) inquiry-based working groups, (2) community engagements, and (3) public forms of scholarship, including a class podcast, opinion essays, and a course website located at: www.activismbeyondtheclassroom.com.