Social Justice as General Education

Abstract

This paper addresses the neglect of social justice and social change in the undergraduate general education curriculum at a community college. The intended audience of this paper is community college instructors with heavy teaching loads of mostly general education courses. Without pretending to be a rigorous analysis of theories of radical pedagogy in the classroom, this article aims to balance a review of the discourse surrounding the undergraduate general education curriculum with examples of classroom practices.

The first step in preparing our students to become agents of social change is to equip them with understanding and empathy, in the hope of ending the alienation that is a barrier to action. Assignments in general education geography courses are shared and reflected upon as a first step in grounding theory and introducing students to the struggle for social justice at home and abroad.

Key Words:

• community college
• general education
• social justice