Course Offerings
Current course offerings and schedules are subject to change and should be checked on LORIS, or LORIS Browse Classes, where location information can also be found. Full, official academic information can be found on the academic calendars.
Program-Specific Information
Indigenous Studies
All classes are held at the Brantford campus unless otherwise noted. The Indigenous Studies combined honours programs and options can only be completed on the Brantford campus; the Indigenous Studies minor is available on both the Brantford and Waterloo campuses. If you would like to take a course for which you are missing a prerequisite or are in the wrong year level or major, you will have to fill out the Indigenous Studies Override Form. Filling out the form does not guarantee entry into the course.
Law and Society
The Law and Society Honours BA and minor, and their courses, are only available at the Brantford Campus. If you would like to take a course for which you are missing a prerequisite or are in the wrong year level or major, you will have to fill out the Law and Society Override Form. Filling out the form does not guarantee entry into the course.
Social and Environmental Justice
If you would like to take a course for which you are missing a prerequisite or are in the wrong year level or major, you will have to fill out the Social and Environmental Justice Override Form. Filling out the form does not guarantee entry into the course.
Social Justice and Community Engagement (MA)
If you would like to take an SJCE course as an elective for another MA program, contact the SJCE graduate coordinator for permission.
This course helps students understand and develop broad frameworks for explaining the structural factors and discourses that lead to social inequality and environmental injustice, as well as theories of progressive social change. The course promotes systematic, reflexive, theoretical thinking about specific issues such as gender discrimination, environmental injustice, poverty, political ecology, resilience, globalization, and democracy.
Students learn key skills related to research that supports community-based social/environmental justice work including community-based research paradigms,research ethics in community settings, program evaluation,and types of quantitative and qualitative data sources. The course also uses a critical lens to examine how conducting and using research can be a political activity.This involves learning how to interpret and position 'evidence' and considering the relationship of research to funding proposals.
This course challenges students to think critically about the relationship between their own social location and the development of community capacities. Key topics may include the link between colonization and social justice, power, privilege and intersecting oppressions, solidarity and allyship, and successful activism.
In this course, students focus on the practical skills needed to do effective social/environmental justice work in a variety of settings. Topics include networking and fundraising, grant writing, conflict management and resolution within social justice settings, project management skills including budgeting, and explorations of common ethical conundrums faced by social justice practitioners.
This course examines different possibilities for community organizing, exploring the limits and possibilities for each within the Canadian legislative and regulatory environment. It introduces examples, past and present, of how activists have sought social/environmental justice on the local, national and global terrain. Students assess organizing models ranging from not-for-profit charitable organizations to grassroots community initiatives to mass movement mobilizations in relation to the challenges and opportunities each presents for securing funding, empowering marginalized communities and politicizing issues.
The 120 hour community placement is an opportunity for students to apply theoretical ideas about social and environmental justice and engaged scholarship in a community setting. The course is founded on the dual pillars of providing a community service learning opportunity for the students while ensuring that the community organization benefits from the placement. (1.0 credit)
The reading course is designed consultatively between the faculty member and student, with the course syllabus reviewed by the Graduate Coordinator. It is designed to meet the needs of students where no existing course increases the student's depth in their chosen area of interest.
At least one special topics course is mounted every year. The subject area is chosen to reflect broad, general themes in the social justice/environmental justice area. These topics could include local food sustainability, climate justice, virtual communities and social movements and local democratic renewal.
This forum is focused on preparation for the community placement, the development of the major research project (MRP) and on student professionalization. Information literacy related to the development of the MRP literature review is highlighted in the course. During the course students prepare and present their MRP proposal. This course is held every other week over the fall and winter semesters. It is graded on a pass/fail basis.
Students will undertake research that culminates in a final 50-60 page major paper, or alternative creative work or engaged scholarship project. The alternative final project will be accompanied by a 20-30 page written report. All MRPs must be within the scope of social and environmental justice issues and sufficiently rigorous for a Master's program. The MRP topic will be chosen in consultation with the advisory committee and the Graduate Coordinator. Each student will have an MRP committee consisting of an Advisor and Second Reader. Student submission of the final MRP (including written work and any other appropriate documentation such as arts piece) will be followed by an oral defense to the MRP committee. (1.0 credit)
Past Course Outlines
For past course outlines, please contact the program administrator and provide:
- the course number(s);
- the year the course was offered; and
- your Laurier student ID (if applicable).
The outlines will be forwarded to you as a PDF attachment.
Current students: You must use your Laurier email account when requesting course outlines as this is our official means of communication with you, and will ensure delivery.