This is a comprehensive course on the conceptualization and development of community-based learning 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 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 “sociological imagination” for social justice.
