Courses in the Topics in Social Theory and Practice series feature in-depth considerations of such topics with reflections on their implications for social change.
The topic for Fall 2014 is race and racism. We will consider a variety of arguments for and against the biological and / or social “reality” of race—taking into account purported races other than those defined by the black / white binary and the intersection of race with other social categories. We will then consider a number of accounts of racism, contemporary manifestations of racism, and potential counter-measures.

Short Description:
A workbook for bringing new voices into public debate based on the performance creation approach developed by Transforming Stories, Driving Change.

Long Description:
Can theatre bring new voices into public debate? Facilitating theatre workshops with community members who experience social marginalization is an art that, when done well, feels more like magic. But even the best facilitators are not magicians. With this workbook we pull back the curtain on the magic by taking readers behind the scenes of the Hamilton-based research and performance initiative Transforming Stories, Driving Change (TSDC.) Since 2015, TSDC teams have worked alongside community partners and performer-advocates to make plays designed to draw attention to the voices and visions of people whose opinions are not often represented in discussions of the future of the City. Through our performances, we have tried to contribute to building the movements that can make public leaders more accountable to people who are affected by their decisions. Five years and four plays later, we offer this workbook as a practical guide to TSDC’s creative approach.

Word Count: 51178

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Short Description:
Trauma Informed Behaviour Support: A Practical Guide to Developing Resilient Learners guides educators working with primary school aged children to understand trauma as well as its impact on young children's brains, behaviour, learning, and development. The book provides a novel framework of practice – drawing on contemporary theories of developmental trauma and evidence-based practices of positive behaviour support. Practical strategies and tools are offered for educators to use to create strength-based environments that support children's recovery, resiliency and learning. Educators are introduced to the systemic impacts of traumatic stress and are provided with trauma-informed practices that they can use to support workforce development that enhance the quality of pedagogical practices, while promoting the safety and care of the school community.

Word Count: 56771

ISBN: 978-1-998755-50-9

(Note: This resource's metadata has been created automatically by reformatting and/or combining the information that the author initially provided as part of a bulk import process.)

Short Description:
Trauma Informed Behaviour Support: A Practical Guide to Developing Resilient Learners guides educators working with primary school aged children to understand trauma as well as its impact on young children's brains, behaviour, learning, and development. The book provides a novel framework of practice – drawing on contemporary theories of developmental trauma and evidence-based practices of positive behaviour support. Practical strategies and tools are offered for educators to use to create strength-based environments that support children's recovery, resiliency and learning. Educators are introduced to the systemic impacts of traumatic stress and are provided with trauma-informed practices that they can use to support workforce development that enhance the quality of pedagogical practices, while promoting the safety and care of the school community.

Word Count: 56931

ISBN: 978-0-6487698-3-5

(Note: This resource's metadata has been created automatically by reformatting and/or combining the information that the author initially provided as part of a bulk import process.)

Interdisciplinary Insights

Short Description:
The authors of ‘Trauma Informed Behavior Support’, Dr Kay Ayre and Dr Govind Krishnamoorthy, speak with interdisciplinary experts from education and mental health about trauma informed education and practical strategies to support students.

Long Description:
As an educator, have you ever wondered about students, “Why can’t she just control her behaviour?” or “Why did he do that?” The demands of the classroom, and the scrutiny of teachers, often leave little time for teachers to consider the complex needs of children experiencing traumatic stress. Drawing on their lived experience and professional expertise, the conversations with trauma-informed education experts in this unique book offer educators an opportunity to develop a deeper understanding of the needs of students and strategies for responding with compassion and empathy. In a time of rapidly emerging scientific discovery, and social and political challenges, this book encourages educational leaders to question the fundamental assumptions of dominant pedagogical practices and sets the foundations for innovation in education.

Word Count: 41663

ISBN: 978-0-6453261-8-5

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Includes cases based on the author’s own 10-year experience working in emergency contexts with displaced populations in 11 countries across the world.
Focuses on the mental health of displaced populations from a uniquely psychological, sociocultural, and ecological perspective.
Provides practical applications for non-specialist professionals working with displaced populations in complex institutional systems.
Is an open access book.

This seminar examines a number of famous trials in European and American history. It considers the salient issues (political, social, cultural) of several trials, the ways in which each trial was constructed and covered in public discussions at the time, the ways in which legal reasoning and storytelling interacted in each trial and in the later retellings of the trial, and the ways in which trials serve as both spectacle and a forum for moral and political reasoning. Students have an opportunity to study one trial in depth and present their findings to the class.

Short Description:
This guide provides an overview of the different types of abuse, including signs to look for when a child is being abused or neglected. Legal responsibilities to identify and report suspected child abuse are also presented.

Long Description:
This guide provides an overview of the different types of abuse, including signs to look for when a child is being abused or neglected. Legal responsibilities to identify and report suspected child abuse are also presented.

Word Count: 17542

(Note: This resource's metadata has been created automatically by reformatting and/or combining the information that the author initially provided as part of a bulk import process.)

This course examines the changes in contemporary French society through the study of political debates, reforms and institutions since 1958, and analyzes the deep influence of politics on cultural and social life, despite a decline in political participation. Public controversies and political cleavages, from the Algerian war to postcolonial issues, from the birth of the European Union to the recent financial crisis, and from the moral “revolution” of the seventies to the recognition of new families are revisited.
This course is taught in English.

From the Street to the Classroom

Short Description:
Have you ever wondered about why homelessness exists in Canada? This book brings together lived experience representation and the most recent research to explore homelessness in Canada, from a range of different perspectives. Readers are challenged to think about homelessness from various academic viewpoints, including the fields of Indigenous and Canadian Studies, Mental Health and Public Health Studies, Population Studies, Social Sciences, and Health Sciences. The authors pose seemingly simple questions and then, through the use of real life scenarios, embedded interview videos, artwork, and interactive activities, demonstrate how the answers are actually rather complex. "Understanding Homelessness in Canada: From the Street to the Classroom" is a must-read for Canadians everywhere.

Long Description:
Have you ever wondered about why homelessness exists in Canada? This book brings together lived experience representation and the most recent research to explore homelessness in Canada, from a range of different perspectives. Readers are challenged to think about homelessness from various academic viewpoints, including the fields of Indigenous and Canadian Studies, Mental Health and Public Health Studies, Population Studies, Social Sciences, and Health Sciences. The authors pose seemingly simple questions and then, through the use of real life scenarios, embedded interview videos, artwork, and interactive activities, demonstrate how the answers are actually rather complex. “Understanding Homelessness in Canada: From the Street to the Classroom” is a must-read for Canadians everywhere.

Word Count: 238078

(Note: This resource's metadata has been created automatically by reformatting and/or combining the information that the author initially provided as part of a bulk import process.)

An Introduction to Mass Communication

Short Description:
Understanding Media and Culture: An Introduction to Mass Communication, will support an engaging and interesting course experience for students that will not only show them the powerful social, political and economic forces will affect the future of media technology, but will challenge students to do their part in shaping that future. For questions about this textbook please contact textbookuse@umn.edu

Long Description:
Understanding Media and Culture: An Introduction to Mass Communication is adapted from a work produced by a publisher who has requested that they and the original author not receive attribution. This adapted edition is produced by the University of Minnesota Libraries Publishing through the eLearning Support Initiative. Though the publisher has requested that they and the original author not receive attribution, this adapted edition reproduces all original text and sections of the book, except for publisher and author name attribution. For questions about this textbook please contact textbookuse@umn.edu

Word Count: 185227

ISBN: 978-1-946135-26-1

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According to the author, the world did not need another introductory text in mass communication. But the world did need another kind of introductory text in mass communication, and that is how Understanding Media and Culture: An Introduction to Mass Communication was birthed.

View Exhibit of South Asian Canadian Labour History in British Columbia

Short Description:
Explore the South Asian Canadian Digital Archive View all SACDA archival collections and exhibits (www.sacda.ca) Find labour history archival images View the full South Asian Canadian Labour History archival image collection Supported by the Province of British Columbia

Word Count: 22476

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Over the last 40 years, new managerial technologies in Western democratic societies have emerged to dominate our perceived and lived reality. Demands for autonomy and a creative life, which have been the touchstones for artistic endeavors, have been readily absorbed into management philosophies, becoming normative values for self-management and entrepreneurial innovation. Is this art’s triumph or demise? Can we imagine other worlds beyond our managed reality and propose forms of living not yet captured by the rationality of network capitalism? We will explore the “creative” figure and how it can shape renewed critical expressions in fields such as technology, design, science, philosophy, etc.

Urban Health: A Practical Application for Clinical Based Learning is an openly licensed, peer-reviewed textbook for clinical-based nursing educators covering barriers in urban health and their impact on patient health outcomes. The authors explore perspectives of urban communities, urban patients, and urban healthcare providers to offer insight into how healthcare providers can address disparities in urban healthcare, provide meaningful care with the lived experiences of urban patients in mind, and improve patient-provider communication by moving towards a more solution-driven, team-based care approach. Features include learning activities, exemplars, and case studies.

This course is intended to introduce graduate students to a set of core writings in the field of urban sociology. Topics include the changing nature of community, social inequality, political power, socio-spatial change, technological change, and the relationship between the built environment and human behavior. We examine the key theoretical paradigms that have constituted the field since its founding, assess how and why they have changed over time, and discuss the implications of these paradigmatic shifts for urban scholarship, social policy and the planning practice.

This course explores the creative dialectic—and sometimes conflict—between sociology and urban policy and design. Topics include the changing conceptions of “community,” the effects of neighborhood characteristics on individual outcomes, the significance of social capital and networks, the drivers of categorical inequality, and the interaction of social structure and political power. Students will examine key theoretical paradigms that have constituted sociology since its founding, assess how and why they have changed over time, and discuss the implications of these shifts for urban research and planning practice.
This seminar took place at the Massachusetts Correctional Institution in Norfolk, MA, with half the class from MIT and half of the class from MCI Norfolk via the Boston University Prison Education Program. The location and composition of the class was chosen based on the belief that bringing together students of sociology and urban studies who are incarcerated with those who are at MIT would create a unique and valuable environment in which to generate new knowledge about our social world and the repeated mechanisms that contribute to persistent socio-economic inequality and other pressing social problems.

The course examines the causes and effects of rapid urbanization in developing countries. Using case studies from the world’s four major developing regions, including (among others) Mexico City, Buenos Aires, Managua, Singapore, Hong Kong, Guangzhou, Kabul, Beirut, Cairo, Kinshasa, Cape Town and Johannesburg, it explores the economic and political dynamics that grease the wheels of contemporary patterns of growth. In addition to examining both local and transnational forces that drive contemporary urbanization, the course focuses on key issues that emerge in rapidly growing cities of the developing world, ranging from growing income inequality and socio-economic exclusion, environmental challenges, and rising violence. Class sessions are discussion-based and focus on a critical analysis of the arguments presented in the readings.

Short Description:
«La violence domestique (conjugale) dans les communautés immigrantes: étude de cas» est un recueil de presse d'eCampus Ontario en libre accès comprends des études de cas d'immigrantes victimes de violence conjugale à utiliser comme matériel pédagogique. Le livre met en évidence la complexité de la violence conjugale dans les communautés d'immigrants et les différents processus juridiques auxquels ces femmes font face pour entamer la justice et les défis auxquels elles sont confrontées pour refaire leur vie et celle de leurs enfants. Ce livre contient également des questions de réflexion; une description des processus juridiques dans le contexte de la violence domestique (conjugale) et un lexique relatif aux études de cas.

Long Description:
«La violence domestique (conjugale) dans les communautés immigrantes: étude de cas» est un recueil de presse d’eCampus Ontario librement accessible comprenant des études de cas de nouvelles arrivantes, victimes de violence conjugale, qui servira de matériel pédagogique. Cette recherche est le résultat d’une analyse de dossiers judiciaires fermés, de 15 immigrantes vivant en Ontario, victimes de violence dans leur mileu domestique. Les études de cas exhaustives qui émergent de cette recherche présentent le sujet dans toute sa complexité, mettant en évidence la vulnérabilité unique de ces femmes, face aux intersections entre leur contexte ethnoculturelle, leur genre et leur statut d’immigration. De plus, ce livre fait valoir les différents processus juridiques auxquels ces femmes doivent engendrer pour faire preuve de justice, ainsi que les défis auxquels elles sont confrontées pour rétablir leur propre vie et celle de leurs enfants. Au delà des études de cas, ce livre contient des questions de réflexion; une description des processus juridiques impliqués dans les incidences de violence conjugale et un lexique relatif aux études de cas. Ce Pressbook interactif est une ressource idéale pour le travailleurs sociaux et les juristes, y compris les étudiants en formation au sein du travail social ou en droit. Il servira à développer leur compréhension de la complexité des cas de violence domestique (conjugale) envers les femmes en milieu domestique parmi les familles immigrantes et d’élaborer des stratégies d’intervention et d’aide culturellement adaptées.

Word Count: 23186

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This course examines the problem of mass violence and oppression in the contemporary world, and the concept of human rights as a defense against such abuse. It explores questions of cultural relativism, race, gender and ethnicity. It examines case studies from war crimes tribunals, truth commissions, anti-terrorist policies and other judicial attempts to redress state-sponsored wrongs. It also considers whether the human rights framework effectively promotes the rule of law in modern societies. Students debate moral positions and address ideas of moral relativism.