Advancing Healthy & Socially Just Schools & Communities
Award-Winning Topic! The University of Calgary Provost and Vice President (Academic) honoured this program in 2017 with The University of Calgary Curriculum Development Award.
Program Overview
Ensuring that learning environments are safe and socially just is important for the promotion of healthy behavior, social-emotional maturity, and resiliency skills. This program aims to foster equitable, diverse, and inclusive learning environments and workplaces that are accessible to all and free from harassment, bullying, and discrimination. We strive to promote healthy relationships, develop resilient youth, and encourage student advocacy through a social justice and anti-oppressive lens.
Program Details
The overall goal of this graduate program is to increase the capacity of those associated with youth-oriented helping professions to nurture healthy relationships, redress oppressive structures, and encourage social justice advocacy. This program hopes to develop future equity, diversity and inclusion leaders and change-makers in various learning environments within different types of workplaces.
Experiential learning is learning by doing that bridges knowledge and experience through critical reflection. This program offers the following kinds of experiential learning opportunities:
- Identify, attend, and reflect on a real-world event related to social justice.
- Create and present an infographic action plan addressing healthy relationships or violence prevention, integrating learned concepts and an action strategy.
- Design and carry out your own social justice-oriented project connected to a context in which you work and engage.
This graduate four-course program is designed to assist those drawn to the caring professions in gaining the knowledge, skills and confidence necessary to develop healthy and socially just learning environments in formal and informal settings. Educators, social workers, health care providers, and other community service professionals work closely with the public and play a key role in ensuring respect for human diversity regardless of race, national or ethnic origin, colour, disability, class, sexual orientation, gender identity or expression, or religion.
A registration package will be sent to new students after they have been admitted. Registration for the summer term will be available in late winter. Fall and Winter registration opens in the spring. Your Graduate Program Administrator will send more information about registration to you.
Fee details are available through the University Calendar. An explanation of fees is available on the Faculty of Graduate Studies' website.
The University of Calgary offers multiple ways to meet the cost of your education. Please refer to the Awards, Scholarships and Bursaries page to learn more about options available to students. For additional information, please contact Student Financial Support.
Please refer to Admission Requirements for Master's Programs.
[This] has been a journey that I will never forget. My Master’s degree changed my life completely. I am an entirely new person who is more emotionally connected to the world.
Sarah Beech, MEd
Advancing Healthy and Socially Just Schools and Communities
Sarah graduated with her MEd in 2019. Read more about Sarah's journey
Program Schedule & Course Descriptions
- Program begins each Summer term (refer to the Academic Schedule for specific dates)
- Outlines are normally available 1-2 weeks prior to the start of term in D2L
- 3 units per course
Term 1 - Summer
Promoting Healthy Relationships
Healthy relationships are critical for robust social, emotional, physical, and cognitive development. Grounded in neuroscience and social science theories, participants will explore the importance of implementing comprehensive evidence-based policies and practices that promote mental wellness and cognitive, social and emotional competencies that help a community to reduce bullying and other forms of violence.
Term 2 - Fall
Anti-Oppression Education
Paramount to creating safe learning environments is a critical and socially just evaluation of the roots of violence in the contexts of power, control, and privilege. Participants will examine oppression in the forms of racism, sexism, classism, ableism, heterosexism, and transphobia in order to develop strategies for addressing and preventing prejudice in all its manifestations.
Term 3 - Winter
Developing Resilient Youth
A healthy community supports youth resiliency in numerous ways. This course will explore the concepts of resiliency and trauma, and how they apply to the lives of contemporary youth. This course also places emphasis on implementing and sustaining effective resilience supports for youth across different contexts and settings.
Term 4 - Spring
Student Advocacy and Community
Cultivating student participation in advocacy efforts is an essential component of promoting healthy and socially just schools and communities. Participants will analyze issues impacting students from a critical pedagogical perspective, such as: diversity and inclusion, activism and advocacy, media literacy, social networking, and safe peer relationships. Participants will explore these topics in the context of honoring student engagement and promoting student leadership in advocacy efforts.