SW Z503 - Diversity & Opprsn: Prac & Pol

Credits: 3

This course deepens learning introduced from SW 503 Human Behavior and Social Environment and SW 515 Social Welfare Policy and Programs, to understand historical and structural oppression and privilege in ways that are relevant for responding to disparities and inequality within populations. Students will grapple with and identify meaningful, working definitions of prejudice, discrimination, marginalization, and stigma and situate these definitions – and people’s lived experiences – within historical and contemporary societal contexts in social work practice, research, policy, theory, and activism. Students will examine and develop models of culturally responsive, ethical social work practice by integrating an understanding of the dynamics of prejudice, discrimination and structural oppression with a professional use of self and a commitment to human rights and social justice. Students will explore manifestations of structural oppression such as racism, sexism, xenophobia, transphobia, biphobia, and homophobia, as well as prejudice and discrimination that manifests as ethnocentrism, classism, ageism, and ableism. We will examine the ways in which these various forms structural oppression overlaps and intersect and the societal and global implications of these intersections of oppression. Students will learn how to directly apply various theories of human behavior and culturally competent models to their professional practice within various levels of systems to maximize empowerment of clients and communities and to reduce clients’ and communities’ experience of oppression and institutional violence through social justice education and action. The course is designed to create explicit linkages between practice and policy while engaging a professional use of self and a commitment to social justice. Prerequisite: Admission to the Online MSW Program or permission of program. Offered: spring only.