Doing Social Justice Education: A Practitioner's Guide for Workshops and Structured Conversations

This book is principally written for entry-level student affairs and non-profit staff who develop and facilitate social justice education workshops and structured conversations, as well as for student peer educators who are often employed to assist in the facilitation of such workshops for their peers. It is suitable for anyone starting out to do such work. It provides readers with a practical framework and hands-on tools to craft effective and positive interventions and workshops that are relevant to context and are true to the facilitator's own circumstances. It offers a succinct but comprehensive introduction to the planning, design, and facilitation of social justice experiences, grounding readers in relevant theory, taking into account participants' prior understandings of issues of race and privilege, institutional environment and campus climate, and the facilitator's positionality. It provides guidance on defining outcomes and developing content and exercises to achieve workshop goals. Starting from the premise that the facilitation and delivery of social justice education experiences should be grounded in scholarship and that such experiences can only achieve their ends if crafted to meet the unique characteristics and circumstances of the institution and workshop participants, the authors begin by synthesizing current theory on social justice education and cultural competence, and then guiding readers on analyzing the context and purpose of their workshop. They provide readers with an easy to follow five-part framework to systematically design social justice education workshops and structured conversations and to assess the resulting learning. Particularly valuable for those starting out in this work is guidance on facilitation and on the use and selection of exercises to align with goals and participants' characteristics and social identities.