Introduction: Teaching American Government from a Social Justice Perspective

The purpose of this book is to provide ideas, resources and lesson suggestions for teaching a college-level American Government course from a social justice perspective. While these resources are intended to be used to make diversity and social justice a central theme or focus of the course, select resources can also be incorporated as needed to augment particular lessons or textbook chapters. The DSJ components of the course supplement other materials I typically use for American Government content, including the textbook from WW Norton, We the People, 13th core edition, Ginsburg, et al.

These resources are a byproduct of significant modifications I made to an American Government course I had been teaching at the community college level for many years. The changes were made to qualify the course for designation as a Diversity and Social Justice (DSJ) course at Lake Washington Institute of Technology (LWTech) in Kirkland, Washington, USA.

The DSJ curriculum program at LWTech was launched in 2020 at a time when the murder of George Floyd by police had recently sparked nationwide and worldwide protests and calls for action to dismantle systemic racism throughout institutions of American society. LWTech responded to that call by committing to becoming an anti-racist college, and the DSJ curriculum is an important part of that institutional response. Led by sociology professor Sharon Raz, PhD, the DSJ program recruited faculty interested in transforming their courses to address issues of diversity and social justice.

I was accepted into an initial cohort of 20 faculty from multiple disciplines selected to participate in a training program to prepare us to integrate DSJ learning outcomes and teach them in our courses. To qualify for participation in the program, an instructor had to identify four learning outcomes from three categories of DSJ topics that they would add to their course to make DSJ a major focus — a central theme around which the course would be restructured. The three categories are: Communication, Difference and Power, Privilege and Inequity. One outcome was required each from the Difference and Communication categories, and two outcomes from Power, Privilege and Inequity.

The four outcomes I chose to be central to the American Government course were:

• Discuss and analyze how categories of difference are or have been created, maintained, and experienced through power, privilege, and inequity. (Difference)
•  Communicate one’s own intersecting identities of difference and how they position oneself in relation to power, privilege, and inequity.   ​(Communication)
• Identify specific ways in which individuals and social and artistic movements attempted to disrupt systems of power, privilege, and inequity.  (Power, Privilege and Inequity)
• Analyze and apply ethical practice in relation to diverse communities and cultures for the promotion of equity and social justice. (Power, Privilege and Inequity)

While completing the quarter-long DSJ training in Spring 2021, I test-piloted the course with the new DSJ focus. The DSJ curriculum requirement was officially launched in Fall 2021 with the first slate of DSJ courses offered. Students matriculating at LWTech during or after that quarter, and seeking a degree or certificate, had to pass at least one DSJ course to satisfy graduation requirements. The DSJ requirement and approved courses were carefully prepared to ensure that the new DSJ requirement could be met within a student’s existing curriculum without adding any more credits, cost ore time to completion.

I taught my course as part of the DSJ approved curriculum for the first time in Winter 2022, and have taught it as a DSJ course three additional times since then. Student surveys administered by LWTech, as well as my own surveys, show that students are generally quite satisfied with their experience in the course and are successful in achieving the DSJ outcomes, along with other course outcomes. Student comments have led to a number of changes that I have adopted to improve the quality of the course.

More information about LWTech’s DSJ program can be found at https://www.lwtech.edu/academics/diversity-social-justice-requirement/

A collection of OEM resources complied by faculty for teaching DSJ in a wide variety of disciplines can be found in a Pressbook: https://openwa.pressbooks.pub/dsj2021/