The University of British Columbia
Department of Educational Studies
EDST-561 Practicum Course
Education, leadership, community advocacy, and solidarity building through an intersectional colonialities praxis
Course Description:
This course is aligned with UBC’s (2020) Indigenous Strategic Plan https://isp.ubc.ca/ ; UBC’s (2018) Shaping UBC’s Next Century Strategic Plan https://strategicplan.ubc.ca/wp-content/uploads/2019/09/2018_UBC_Strategic_Plan_Full-20180425.pdf; UBC’s (2022) Anti-racism and Inclusive Excellence at UBC Report https://antiracism.ubc.ca/task-force/ and the UBC Faculty of Education’s (2019) Learning Transformed Strategic Plan https://educ.sites.olt.ubc.ca/files/2019/10/FoE_StratPlan_SHORT.pdf. As such, this course aims to move away from and interrupt tokenistic “integrated” approaches to Indigeneity, anti-racism, anti-oppression, social justice and equity which are often seen as being synonymous with the concept of assimilation. Further, the course problematizes the many technocractic, civilizing and essentializing approaches to community engagement and practicum work in academia. Building on Kimberlé William Crenshaw’s (1989) ground-breaking scholarship in the field of Law, which has achieved significant traction in recent years in the field of education, this course aims to institutionalize reciprocal community advocacy and solidarity building through a decolonizing approach rooted in what I call Intersectional Colonialities — a theoretical framework and praxis that demands intersectional consciousness and action for solidarity building (Gill, forthcoming).
General Information for interested participants
Each participant will be invited to engage with a local non-profit organizations or in a workplace/ school/school district institution that supports Indigenous, racialized or marginalized populations in order to develop an advocacy relationship with them that will ideally continue beyond the term of this course. It is expected that participants will have met/reconnected with their chosen anti-oppression organization/school/district contact for their “internship” before the course begins in an area that they may already have some advocacy engagement or an area that they hope to pursue in their graduate studies. If support is needed in finding an organization course participants should contact the instructor at hartej.gill@ubc.ca ASAP to begin introductory relationship building with one of the instructor’s community partners/groups/ lower mainland school/district connections. Once the initial logistics are finalized, the remainder of the course will be co-created with course participants in order to make the teaching/learning as meaningful as possible for all.
Course Format and Assignments:
Each participant will be required to work with their school/community partners throughout the term and participate in the monthly teaching/learning circles as a class. The teaching/learning circles may take place in the various locations of the participants’ “internship/practicum” in the community or on Zoom. Each participant will be required to spend approximately 25 hours working with their community partner as part of the course. As the instructor, I will be meeting with each participant’s community/work-place based/school/district partners (in the community/by Zoom) approximately bi-weekly. The remaining class hours/dates of this course will be determined with course participants.
Assignments will include on-going reflections from our readings and our intersectional colonialities teaching/learning circles and one final assignment (completed through diverse decolonizing formats/approaches to best meet the needs of community partners) detailing the community advocacy engagements and reciprocity initiatives and their connections to the main goals and learnings of our course.
If you have any questions about EDST-561 please do not hesitate to contact me at: hartej.gill@ubc.ca