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Engaging Communities for Social Change

Overview

  • Credit value: 30 credits at Level 6
  • Convenor: Dr William Ackah
  • Assessment: a 1500-word engagement tool plan (20%) and 3000-word reflexive critical engagement tool (80%)

Module description

In this module you will have the opportunity to critically engage with policy makers and community activists working with communities to effect social change. We focus on contemporary issues of equality, justice, governance, and political, social/cultural and environmental change. Through a combination of theory and practice-based sessions, we will explore how communities are engaged/disengaged and empowered/disempowered in attempts to improve communities and societies.

An important aspect of the module is practical engagement with people working in the sector. Through site visits to community engagement spaces and sector innovators taking class sessions, you will gain valuable skills and insight into what it is like to operate in the community policy engagement space. The assessment is also geared towards developing employability and engagement skills, with the assignments focusing on developing practical guides for community engagement.

Indicative syllabus

  • Introduction to community engagement and public policy
  • Theorising community engagement and public policy
  • Strategies for community engagement
  • Case studies with community engagement practitioners
  • Case studies with public policy practitioners
  • UK case study with policy leaders/framers
  • Ethics and critical reflections on community engagement practice
  • Critically evaluating community engagement practice
  • Equity, diversity and inclusion in public discourse
  • Locations of power in community and public policy
  • Crafting a community engagement resource

Learning objectives

By the end of this module, you will be able to:

  • reflect critically on strategies and methods employed by community organisations and community-orientated professionals and practitioners to bring about social change
  • reflect critically on the role of public sector and voluntary sector agencies in delivering services to communities
  • reflect critically on the synergy between academic/classroom-based theory and community engagement in practice
  • establish connections with voluntary sector and public policy sector practitioners and organisations
  • understand the public policy environment in relation to work with communities
  • develop a critically reflexive tool for engaging with communities and public and voluntary sector agencies
  • critically engage with policy frameworks and engagement tools used by organisations and practitioners in the field.