This is a comprehensive course on the conceptualization and development of community-based learning and research in the social sciences, with a particular focus on urban studies, civic engagement, and the inequalities facing various Washington, DC, communities.

In the first part of the semester we will explore urban studies concepts, theories, and methods with an overview of the development of U.S. cities and the structural roots of urban problems, particularly as experienced in Washington, DC.

In addition we will study the new social movement theorists as related to civic engagement in Washington, DC. Then we turn to how civic actors have worked to organize and overcome structural forces to empower themselves and alter their opportunities. We will examine how DC functions as a multi-level international city with effects on global civil society.

After laying the theoretical groundwork for Community Based Learning (CBL), we will learn how to integrate theory into practical methodologies such as ethnographic fieldwork, community-based research projects, interview and focus group strategies, quantitative and web-based technologies, and social histories.

This final integration will be developed as a model of creating social justice cultures in which the student is a strategic actor while at the university and as a lifelong ?social imagination? for social justice.

 

All students will be involved in engaged community-based learning and research with Washington community organizations throughout the semester. There will be a required midterm exam on theory and method and a final project based on the integration of theory and practice into the CBL project the student has chosen. DC CBL Course, Spring 2011 2

This course is offered as a community-based learning course. Community-Based Learning (CBL) is an academic course-based pedagogy that involves student work with disadvantaged and underserved individuals or groups (or organizations working with and for disadvantaged and underserved individuals or groups) that is structured to meet community-defined needs. Critically, course objectives and student community work are fundamentally integrated. The basic aim of CBL courses is two-fold: first, that students’ experiences in community-based work will heighten their engagement with central academic themes and material in the course; second, that the academic course content will facilitate students’ ability to reflect in deep and constructive ways on their experiences working in the community.