The Justice Studies Interdisciplinary Program is the home for the curriculum offerings of the Appalachian Justice Research Center (AJRC), which offers a unique curricular space of law and justice studies courses, allowing law, undergraduate, graduate, and clinical students to engage in collaborative complex problem solving in capstone, intern, and community lab/practicum courses. From start to finish, Justice Studies emphasizes strong theoretical foundations combined with hands-on learning meant to empower students with a well-rounded perspective for grappling with the complexities and challenges of justice. Justice Studies welcomes all, especially indigenous, Black, LGBQT+, poor and underserved students, and anyone else who seeks to take seriously the call for justice.
Justice Studies students will have the opportunity to:
- Develop a critical and intersectional understanding of justice: Engage a practice of understanding differences based on factors such as ethnicity, race, socioeconomic status, age, gender, language, religion, sexual orientation, abilities/disabilities, community and geographical area, as well as differences of viewpoint, ideas, and life experiences
- Contextualize justice: situate need, harm, and conflict in broader institutional and structural contexts, including legal, moral, cultural, social, political, and economic factors
- Engage in participatory forms of research: learn the principles of community-based participatory action and collaborative community research; reflect on and discuss relations and power differentials between researchers and communities; develop and deploy different formats and strategies of making research outcomes available to communities
- Engage in effective problem solving: Listen to and engage with community members to identify needs, goals, and strategies and improve the quality of justice.
- Collaborate effectively: Learn to give and receive criticism effectively; focus on a common goal; reassess work and strategy; engage in active listening; reflect upon how power and difference play out in collaborative knowledge production.
Justice Studies students will develop skill sets for an emergent and transformative justice workforce in the region:
- Develop an understanding of the history and current contexts of Appalachia.
- Deepen understanding of the ways in which laws, regulations, and justice system practices function on the ground in communities.
- Develop a critical analysis of the ways in which law and justice systems have operated in Appalachia and the ways in which law and justice systems have advanced and/or hindered human and environmental flourishing in the region.
- Develop an understanding of the theory and practice of community collaborative research and community justice studies.
- Develop skills in interdisciplinary collaborative problem solving.
- Develop skills in project management.
- Gain proficiency in communicating complex information to lay audiences.
- Advance skills in writing for a variety of audiences including researchers, policy makers and community members.
- Gain proficiency in conducting research on legal and justice policies and practices at the local level.
- Gain proficiency at conducting presentations in community and public settings.
- Gain proficiency at interviewing in a group context.
- Be exposed to a basic introduction to qualitative research design, qualitative interviewing and/or qualitative data analysis as well as quantitative and digital data skills.
- Develop skills in policy, legislative, and community advocacy at the local, state, or national level.