1. Sustainability and Social Justice in an Interprofessional Study Abroad Course
Jennifer Harrison, PhD, LMSW, CAADC
Western Michigan University School of Social Work
talk
ABSTRACT
IMPLEMENTATION
Study abroad courses focused on sustainability and social justice offer the opportunity for interprofessional teaching and learning on topics of sustainability and social justice in different parts of the world, and can be a practice to help ‘green’ curricula outside of the traditional sustainability fields (Androff, Fike, & Rorke, 2017). These courses allow students to experience a very different understanding of resource utilization and sustainable living practice (Borrell, Lane,, & Fraser, 2010), as well the interconnectivity of our behavior and the impact of others living in less developed parts of the world. This education about the global environment and the impacts of health (McMichael, Woodruff, & Hales, 2016), business, and social services (Healy, 2014) provides students, faculty, community partners, and the curriculum itself a chance to stretch and grow toward greater awareness of international sustainability and social justice. In an interprofessional course across colleges of business and health and human services to India curricular, faculty, and student issues emerged which will help to continue to develop the course to challenge Western discourse around sustainability and social justice (Jones, Rowe & Miles, 2017).
FINDINGS
In developing an interprofessional study abroad course focused on sustainability and social justice, there are three curricular, three faculty, and three students issues to be aware of in the process:
Curricular issues:
Expectations and resources between colleges or universities can be disparate
Within the same university, students will not know about each others disciplines
Shared syllabus are crucial for a true group experience
Faculty issues:
Working interprofessionally is both crucial, and more difficult than you would think
Split up the primary contact for different arrangements abroad
Have the same student costs and expectations
Student issues:
Learning about sustainability experientially can be slow and then all at once
Awareness of your own behaviors, use of resources, and privilege is important, but not always fun
As long as you are safe, experience as much as you can even in a short time
After a lecture from a NGO leader on women’s menstrual hygiene in India
The class and faculty dressed in traditional Indian attire on the final day before presentations to partner students
REFERENCES
Androff, D., Fike, C., & Rorke, J. (2017). Greening Social Work Education: Teaching Environmental Rights and Sustainability in Community Practice. Journal of Social Work Education, 1-15.
Borrell, J., Lane, S., & Fraser, S. (2010). Integrating environmental issues into social work practice: Lessons learnt from domestic energy
auditing. Australian Social Work, 63, 315–328.
Healy, L. W. (2014). Educating for the Global Agenda. International Social Work, 57(3),
Jones, P., Rowe, S., & Miles, D. (2017). Beyond practical preparation: A critical approach to preparing social work students for international study experiences. International Social Work. Doi /
McMichael, A., Woodruff, R., & Hales, S. (2006). Climate change and human health: Present and future risks. Lancet, 367(9513), 859–69.
Girls in a village in Hoskote talk about their day at school to students
Walking through the slums in Bangalore on the way to visit a microenterprise of bags made from tetra packs