The social justice course cycle: Prepare, diversify, reflect, and refine

Social injustice is baked into the culture of the United States. Therefore, we must address systems of oppression holistically to foster social change. This article will provide a menu of ideas and outline a system for building a social justice focus into your course. Below we offer several ideas and resources but adopting a few small changes over the course of several semesters might be more realistic for many instructors. Taking time to prep, diversify, reflect, and refine over the life of your teaching calendar will strengthen the diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) focus of your course, uphold APA’s guiding principles, and help make your classroom a more welcoming space for historically marginalized students.

In the weeks and months before your course begins, take the time to engage with some introductory literature and make tweaks to your course plan. While some psychology educators have advanced degrees and practical experience in the field of psychology, many of us (particularly those of us with many dominant identities) may struggle to center diverse perspectives and facilitate conversations across social differences. One key method we can use to increase our comfort with DEI content and skill at incorporating social justice into our courses is to familiarize ourselves with the language and issues at hand. There are many suggestions for readings on anti-racism and social justice online, but here are some of our suggestions:

• So You Want to Talk about Raceopens in new window, by Ijeoma Oluoopens in new window
• Biasedopens in new window, by Jennifer L. Eberhardtopens in new window
• Navigating Difficult Moments in Teaching Diversity and Social Justice, edited by Mary E. Kiteopens in new window, Kim A. Caseopens in new window, and Wendy R. Williams

Bias in the U.S. is systemic and reveals itself in subtle and overt ways. Therefore, when considering how to diversify our course content, we have to think in both large and small adjustments. Consider making some larger changes to your course but also going through your materials with an eye toward inclusivity to root out the subtle ways we convey bias or communicate a lack of belonging.

Course design

Think strategically about what DEI-related learning goals you want to create for your course and clearly articulate them to your students. Plymouth State’s ACE Frameworkopens in new window hosts a variety of tools and plans for promoting adaptability, connection, and equity at the assignment, course, and institutional levels.

Required readings

Diversify your required reading lists. Select textbooks, chapters, and journal articles with authors from a variety of racial, ethnic, class, sexual, and gender identity backgrounds. Lean towards textbooks that feature a holistic incorporation of DEI throughout and supplemental readings that delve deeper into DEI topics. Consider open-source materials to help increase accessibility for your students.

The syllabus

The syllabus communicates your values and goals and is often the first touchpoint a student has with you as an instructor. Make sure your syllabus includes a clear statement of how you will approach social justice issues within the course. Kim Case’s, PhD, syllabus challengeopens in new window is a free resource that guides a review of your syllabus with suggestions to make it more inclusive.

Most institutions of secondary and higher education have a course evaluation mechanism. If you have the option to add your own questions to a course evaluation, use this opportunity to assess your DEI-related learning goals. If this is not available at your institution, consider having students complete a short anonymous survey at the end of the semester, reflecting on these aspects of the course.

Take some time to reflect on what went well and what could be improved in the future. This should occur for all aspects of the course, but it is especially important to do this for your DEI goals, as these are often overlooked in formal assessments of courses. Perhaps make a Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, and Threats (SWOT) chartopens in new window to evaluate your DEI course goals. Reflective journaling or a simple “check-out”/brainstorming session with colleagues at the end of the term can also provide helpful ways to purposefully reflect on the previous term.

Nobody is perfect and you are bound to make mistakes as an instructor. After you have gone through the process of evaluating and reflecting, it is important to seek-out additional resources (we provide a list of free DEI-related resources at the end of this post) and support from your colleagues to build DEI course content and troubleshoot. Facebook groups like the Teaching Social Justice Resource Exchangeopens in new window or the Society for the Teaching of Psychologyopens in new window can be a great place to ask questions, obtain resources, and fine-tune your materials with your fellow educators.

Not all of these suggestions will work for every educator. We hope that you will be able to pick and choose among any of these suggestions that seem especially helpful. Teaching about diversity, equity, and inclusion, especially if you are a member of one or more of the groups that are affected by systemic oppression, can be mentally and emotionally challenging; teaching about social justice can be retraumatizing at times. Therefore, it is important to take the time to connect with those who understand you and engage in tasks outside of teaching that energize and inspire you. By bringing our best selves to these conversations, we can inspire students to be their best, as well.

• APA guidelines on respectful language surrounding social identity
• APAGS Multicultural Training Database

• Breaking the Prejudice Habitopens in new window

• Understanding Prejudiceopens in new windowlogin requiredlogin required
• login requiredlogin required

  login requiredlogin requiredSociety for the Psychological Study of Social Issues Teaching Resourcesopens in new window

• Plymouth State’s ACE Frameworkopens in new window

• Kim Case’s syllabus challengeopens in new window

Benjamin Blankenship, PhD, is an assistant professor of psychology at James Madison University. His teaching includes cultural psychology, which focuses heavily on DEI-related issues in the U.S. and global contexts, as well as research methods, where he incorporates DEI-based topics throughout the curriculum and in student projects.

Kala J. Melchiori, PhD, is an assistant professor of psychology at James Madison University. She uses a variety of social justice teaching perspectives in her gender, research methods, and social psychology courses. Melchiori is an expert in stereotyping and prejudice, with a focus on examining sexism from both the target and perpetrator perspective.