Difference, Power, and Responsibility

Degree Requirement/Course Criteria

Explanations, Rationale, and Examples Of Criteria

Criteria

1. Difference, Power, and Responsibility courses are regularly numbered departmental offerings (not 199 or 299 courses) of at least three credit hours.

Difference, Power, and Responsibility courses can be either current courses listed in the college catalog (and revised to meet the criteria) or new courses (incorporating the criteria) that are developed by the program to become regular course offerings. Each course must be at least 3 credit hours.

Rationale

Difference, Power, and Responsibility (DPR) courses are intended to fulfill the dual purpose of meeting DPR requirements as well as meeting general education and/or distribution requirements. Courses numbered 199/299 are considered experimental and will apply only as electives. Typically, 199/299 courses are conducted a minimum of three times to ensure appropriateness of content and student interest before attaining a permanent number. Requiring DPR courses to be “regular” offerings ensures that the courses developed will become a consistent part of college programs and support the goal of the initiative to encourage general infusion of these concepts into regular course offerings. In addition, courses must be at least three credits, as State guidelines require that “courses that apply to the degree requirement should be at least three credits each” ( Community College Handbook —Oregon Department of Community Colleges and Workforce Development).

Examples

See the 2002-03 college catalog for regularly numbered courses. Courses that currently meet the general education and distribution requirements are listed on pages 36 and 38.

2. Emphasize critical thinking skills.

Explanation

Critical thinking skills include analysis, inference, synthesis, application, evaluation, comparison, contrast, verification, substantiation, and explanation. Critical thinking occurs when some or all of these skills are used to process information, generate or challenge beliefs, and guide behavior.

Rationale

An emphasis on the development of critical thinking skills encourages students to actively and thoughtfully challenge, test, and refine their current ideas about issues of difference and power. To develop a critical approach to learning, students need multiple opportunities to respond to information in ways that allow them to transform the material into new knowledge for themselves . Application of critical thinking has the potential to call into question established views and potentially promote a reframing of them. A critical attitude can become a foundation for students' approach to issues in the future.

Examples .

Critical thinking can take many different forms in a course. Specific strategies, for example, may include activities for problem posing, problem solving, decision-making, research, critical questioning, force field analysis, and formative or summative evaluation.

3. Incorporate active and/or experiential learning activities.

Explanation

Active and experiential learning processes are approaches in which the learning environment is designed for students to be actively engaged in the acquisition and processing of information and knowledge. These processes include either mental or physical engagement, or both. While active learning usually is classroom-based, experiential learning usually occurs outside the classroom and involves a more intense application of knowledge and skills within an applied context.

Rationale

Active and experiential learning approaches are based on a belief that learning is a dynamic process and that active involvement assists in the construction of new knowledge, skills and beliefs. Active and experiential learning also promote students drawing on prior knowledge to make connections that result in higher levels of learning. Through active and/or experiential learning, the difference, power and responsibility concepts gain meaning and become relevant to students' lives.

Examples

Active and/or experiential learning take different forms depending on the discipline, program and instructor. Examples of active learning include: classroom discussion and web-based discussion groups, ungraded reflective writing and/or journals, case studies and role-playing, lab experiences and small group (team or cooperative) learning activities. Examples of experiential learning are: internships, practicums, service learning projects, and cooperative work experiences.

4. Have, as an important focus, the study of the unequal distribution of power within the subject matter of the course and the discipline.

Explanation

Difference, Power, and Responsibility-designated courses examine the unequal distribution of power as it occurs in society broadly, using existing course content from within the context of a particular course and discipline rather than by adding this examination as a supplement to that content. The focus on these issues becomes “important” by being integrated throughout the course content, classroom learning experiences and student work.

Rationale

Engaging students to consider and respond thoughtfully to issues related to the unequal distribution of power is a central goal of this degree requirement and a foundation for students to consider how they might participate thoughtfully in this society. This focus is part of a particular course's content rather than being added to it because it is intended that the Difference, Power, and Responsibility requirement also serve to meet distribution requirements of the AAOT and AGS degrees.

Examples

Course explorations of situations in which power is examined; e.g., while examining important literary works from the early 20 th Century, an American literature course might also examine why there are now more texts by women and black writers in the “official” anthology for the class as compared to 60 years ago. This can lead to an exploration of how those in power decide what the “official” texts are and how this process has tended to favor writers who are similar to those in power.

5. Focus on the United States, with global contexts encouraged.

Explanation

As part of its focus on issues of difference and the unequal distribution of power, Difference, Power, and Responsibility-designated courses focus on these issues as they occur in the United States. While examining issues of difference and power as they occur in other cultures or regions of the world can help students better understand how these same issues occur in the United States, the global focus should be secondary within the course.

Rationale

Focusing on the United States brings the examination of difference and power home for students, helping them to recognize issues such as racism, ethnocentrism, or sexism as part of their own experience. It assists them in understanding that their lives are intimately connected to the cultural and social systems that define the meaning of “difference” to the advantage of those in power. This is a fundamental connection for students to make if they are then to consider how to participate responsibly in the cultural and social systems they have inherited. Having made this personal connection, focusing on the United States then, provides a context within which students may consider their own actions and what it means to live responsibly within an ethnically and culturally diverse society.

Examples of How Course Content Might Address this Criterion:

•  A health course might study the U.S. health care system and all of the factors contributing to its effectiveness or lack thereof and include national and international factors that affect the system. The focus remains primarily on the U.S., but the global context is considered as well.

•  An American history course might examine westward expansion and its subsequent displacement, dehumanizing, and attempted termination of indigenous people and consider how these processes were legitimized by the doctrine of Manifest Destiny.

6. Examine ways in which discrimination arises from socially defined meanings

attributed to difference.

Explanation

Societies and groups holding power within those societies define what is considered as the “norm” and what is viewed as “difference”, and then use these definitions to assign or deny privilege or power to certain groups.

Rationale

When students understand that difference is socially constructed, they can then begin to examine and critically evaluate implicit cultural assumptions, frames of reference, perspectives, biases, and long held beliefs.

Examples

•  The concept of “whiteness” in the United States has changed during the past 500 years in order to include or exclude specific groups (e.g. African slaves, Native Americans, Irish and Hispanic immigrants).

•  The concept of “race” in the United States has been used to exclude or include certain members of society thereby justifying privileges for some while allowing discriminatory practices for others in such venues as education, housing, and employment.

•  American citizenship and voting rights have changed from the original identification of “citizens” as white, male property owners.

7.     Examine historical and contemporary examples of difference and the unequal distribution of power across cultures and/or social institutions in the United States.

Explanation

As part of focusing on issues of difference and the unequal distribution of power, Difference, Power, and Responsibility-designated courses examine how these concepts have impacted and been impacted by actual situations, both historical and contemporary, that are relevant to the content of a particular course. These situations may be drawn from cultural and/or social institutional contexts.

Rationale

Examining how these concepts impact actual moments in time helps students understand these ideas more clearly. Looking at both historical and contemporary examples further helps to reinforce the on-going nature of these issues and that they haven't simply gone away or that they are isolated to a particular time. By keeping them relevant to the content of a particular course, it helps students to better see the relevance of these issues to their own experience. Providing practical examples of these issues in action also provides a basis for students to respond thoughtfully to these issues with their own actions.   Seeing how these issues work in the real world helps students to consider their own situations more thoughtfully.

Examples

Use of content specific historic and current examples that highlight issues of difference and power and their effect on society.

8. Examine ways in which individuals may participate thoughtfully and responsibly within cultural and/or social systems in the United States.

Explanation .

As part of focusing on issues of difference and the unequal distribution of power, Difference, Power, and Responsibility-designated courses examine how students can respond to these issues through responsible participation in the cultural and/or social systems that surround them. This examination might include practical examples, both historical and contemporary, actual opportunities for action, and other strategies that facilitate the application of these issues to students' lives.

Rationale

Providing ways for students to build systems of meaning through active engagement with content give context to abstract theories and ideas. As a result, students are able to “see themselves” in the material, are able to consider issues of bias and its related “isms” (racism, classism, agism, sexism, ableism, etc.) and are challenged to create new understandings. Specifically, when students examine how issues of difference and power relate to them, they have the opportunity to reframe previously held beliefs and consider new ways to participate in the cultural and/or social systems in which they exist.

Examples

Any activities/experiences designed to take students from theory/knowledge to practice. For example, reflective activities that connect the self (student) to the subject and content, or projects designed to support students in their internal process of moving from abstract knowledge to personal action.