Social Justice Minor
SJ Minor Header Heading link
Social Justice is an interdisciplinary field of study that critically explores issues and social movements focused on equality, fairness, and inclusion. The Minor in Social Justice seeks to provide students with the breadth and depth of knowledge to achieve this critical understanding of justice, equality, and marginality both in the United States and in the world at large. The minor starts from the assumption that “justice matters” and includes a critical examination of what constitutes social injustice and how people have organized to redress conditions of inequality in politics, economics, social policy, and health. The Minor in Social Justice will also attend to issues of disparity between dominant groups and those disadvantaged because of race, ethnicity, gender, sexuality, class, disability, or other identities, conditions, and social positions.
Social Justice Minor Program Requirements Heading link
Below are the SJ Core Courses and Electives required of the minor.
SJ Core Courses Required of the Minor
Students pursuing the Minor in Social Justice Studies will be required to take three core courses:
- SJ 101, Introduction to Social Justice: Stories and Struggles (3 hours). SJ 101 focuses on biographies and historical actors as the lens through which to examine and understand social justice movements.
- SJ 201, Theories and Practices of Social Justice (3 hours). SJ 201 focuses on how movements have been theorized, analyzed, and redressed, using specific social justice dilemmas/issues as the means through which to understand social justice movements.
- SJ 301, Social Justice Capstone Experience (4 hours). SJ 301 will integrate twenty-five contact hours of academic coursework with twenty contact hours of service learning with specific community organizations chosen the semester prior to the course being offered
SJ Elective Courses
The electives for the Minor in Social Justice have been chosen from existing courses in a range of departments across the College of LAS. The guidelines for inclusion as a SJ elective include courses that examine the history of social movements in US and non-US contexts; histories, theories, and representations of traditionally marginalized groups; theories of social change; social movement praxis, and dynamics of race, class, gender, and/or sexuality.
Students are required to take 2 elective courses. If a course is not on the list, students should contact the Director of Undergraduate Studies.
Declare a Social Justice Minor Heading link
Please contact Hideaki Noguchi (hnoguchi@uic.edu) in the LAS Academic Advising Office.
LAS Advising Office
University Hall, 3rd floor
601 S Morgan Street
Chicago, IL 60607