Courses

The Political Ecology of Food and Eating (AUS C3)

There is no more intimate act that we engage in on a regular basis than the practice of eating. At the same time, the food choices that we make have a significant impact on natural systems, cultural practices, and political economic structures. This course examines food production, distribution, and consumption issues across geographic scales, and flows between the micro of the individual body to the macro of the national and global. We will explore the political, social, cultural and economic dimensions of food and eating in particular spaces, places, environments and contexts. As a result of this course you will develop a more sophisticated understanding of the connection between how we eat and how we live, as well as further refine your approach as an animator of positive social change.

Reflective Practicum 2, FA/WI/SP (AUS C3)

Reflective Practicum 2 (RP2) is a three quarter sequence that builds on your experiences in Reflective Practicum 1 (RP1). In RP1 we addressed community, small group, and organizational change processes, and expanded our vision to include the broader cultural conditions that create the contexts for social change. You were exposed to a number of conceptual tools for understanding and animating social change, and at the end of RP1 were introduced to the idea of Critical Consciousness as a container and vision for holding these. There was a lot of digest and synthesize in the first year and you rose to the challenge brilliantly! In RP2 we continue our conversation around social change and focus on developing an effective approach to your work, one that incorporates Antioch Center for Creative Change and programmatic theories and concepts, including values and intentions, and your previous experiences. It is an opportunity for you to synthesize and integrate your graduate school learning in preparation for your practice in your field of endeavour. In this way, the learning intentions for RP2 extend beyond the next three quarters and are meant to help you get a stronger sense of how you will move forward with the knowledge, skills and awareness you have cultivated in C3.

Reflective Practicum 1, FA/WI/SP (AUS C3)

Leading creative change requires thinking and reflecting in action. In our “Just do it!” lives, we seldom take time to examine our actions and learn from our experiences. Reflective practice is about learning from action and for action. Its roots lie in the seminal work of philosopher John Dewey and the writings of Donald Schön, a pioneer in the organizational development field. This course will introduce you to different ways that others have led and been involved in successful creative change and improve your ability to learn from your own and others' experiences. It is designed to prepare you for your own change project next year. Reflective Practicum 1 (RP1) will explore creative change at multiple levels of social systems through three consecutive quarters--fall, winter and spring. In Fall 2006, we will start by considering the role of the individual in social change and how to establish a learning community. We will then go on to explore community-level social change. In Winter 2007, we will address group dynamics as well as organizational change. Finally, in Spring 2007, we will focus on American cultural patterns and the role of twentieth century social movements in cultural-level change in the United States. At the same time as we are collectively exploring social change, you will individually develop your own area of interest in this subject. To do this, you will prepare a paper on your interests in the fall quarter and, based on this, a proposal for a Case Study in the winter quarter. You will conduct and reflect on your Case Study in the spring quarter.

Critical Inquiry (AUS C3)

This course will introduce you to social inquiry by completing and then critically reflecting on several small research projects. While you are learning research methods, we will also address some fundamental questions about the construction of knowledge as the foundation for action and about power as it relates to representation and communication in social change. We will focus on newer methods of qualitative social research that reflect a non-dualistic constructionist viewpoint that has begun to challenge research derived from the positivist paradigm. Much of what you will study is transitional, bridging elements of old and new models of inquiry.

Collaborative Inquiry (AUS C3)

CCC 521: Methods of Collaborative Inquiry: This course focuses on deepening student’s knowledge and practical expertise within their specific Area of Interest around social change. Students work independently in their studies; however they collaborate with their peers through a sustained dialogue around the theory and practice of animating social change. Central to the focus of this course is to prepare students to create and conduct social change projects in Reflective Practicum 2. Course Learning Goals: (1) Extend the practical skills and conceptual capacities to engage as effective change agents in organizations and communities; (2) Deepen the ability to learn and lead collaboratively as part of an evolving adult learning community; (3) Deepen understanding of methods for critical consciousness as tools to design and facilitate adult learning and social change; (4) Prepare to create and conduct social change projects in Reflective Practicum 2.

Bringing it Home: Integrating International Experiences (UW)

Course Website: http://courses.washington.edu/bithome: The focus of this course is to provide students a forum for reflection on their international experiences, processing reverse culture shock experiences upon returning to Seattle, and values clarification on the meanings of ‘diversity' within the global and local communities. In the class we will address issues of power and privilege, social justice, what it means to be civically engaged at the local and global levels, and the tensions and differences between tourism vs. travel, and community service vs. engagement.

Critical Engagements with Service and Community (UW)

his class brings political theories of civil society into critical conversation with applied service learning projects in local Seattle organizations. Coursework will introduce students to the concept of civil society, its varied representations and its practice at different geographic scales. At the same time, students will volunteer at different Seattle-based organizations on projects that will emphasize work and service. In this course, these two experiences will be brought together through exercises which focus on the ways in which the broad theoretical tools for understanding civil society inform and conceal everyday practice and vice-versa. The main themes of this course are to examine and think critically about how “good work”--through service, volunteerism, philanthropy and civil society--is discursively constructed, and how work in civil society and service learning is shaped by state, market and political forces. Furthermore, a central theme of this course will be to situate the work of students from the University of Washington doing service learning and the organizations in which they are working, within a broader university politics and a multi-scalar political economy.