HRSJ Program Goals
This new MA program in Human Rights and Social Justice aims at meeting twin purposes:
˗ To produce graduates who will be leaders in the field of human rights and social justice as advocates, field officers, legal advisers, or researchers, working with or within governments, international and non-governmental organizations.
˗ To realize inter-disciplinary models of education that integrate law, international affairs and political science, equipping students with the capacity to conduct original research on topics of human rights and social justice, to recognize and assess human rights abuses, and to propose remedial measures at the local, national, and international levels of government.
Student Learning Outcomes
- Upon completion of the requirements of this graduate program, students will be able to: Evaluate institutional settings, policies, and procedures from the perspectives of social justice and human rights.
- Identify and evaluate the historical, philosophical, political and cultural progression of human rights as established by global norms embraced in agreements, policies, and resolutions.
- Demonstrate advanced knowledge and comprehension of social injustices and inequities and propose approaches to their remediation drawing from a variety of political, economic, historical, cultural, and geographical settings.
- Synthesize interdisciplinary approaches and contributions to topics such as gender, race, poverty, violence and post-colonialism within a human rights and social justice framework.
- Develop social science methodological skills in research design and statistical analysis.
- Train students to evaluate violations of human rights and social justice through case studies and legal analysis from local, national, and international perspectives.
- Reflectively evaluate the effectiveness of human rights practice in local, national or international humanitarian efforts.
- Critically examine the impact of diverse contexts on the social acceptance and practical application of human rights norms.
- Critically evaluate the distinct roles social science, historical precedents, social theory, culture and ethics play in the development of an informed approach to social justice.
- Develop a broad understanding of social movement theories, such as conflict theory, structural functionalism, critical theory, and symbolic interaction.