Giving future social workers the tools to better understand, navigate, and overcome systems of oppression.

The Program

Giving future social workers the tools to better understand, navigate, and overcome systems of oppression.

This 7-week course explored how to address issues of bias, stereotyping, and customary practices that shape discriminatory systems globally. From discrimination in policing practices and workforce hiring to differential medical care for patients and lenient sentences for perpetrators of sexual violence against women, unjust systems adversely affect the lives of marginalized communities globally.

The course, taught at Columbia University’s Graduate School of Social Work, looked at what tools future social workers could use to better understand, navigate, and overcome systems of oppression. Students learned that in order to effectively disrupt discriminatory systems, individuals and organizations designing interventions need to identify the underlying motivations or cultural factors that shape biases and lead to discriminatory outcomes. By identifying the root of the problem within the framework of international human rights law and applying the tools of behavioral science and design thinking, students designed interventions to overcome structural discrimination.

Co-led by adjunct professors Hansdeep Singh, JD, LLM, ICAAD Co-Founder and 
Elizabeth Long, MA, MS, ICAAD Behavioral Design Lead, the course combined lectures, interactive dialogues, and workshop-style activities with a multidisciplinary group of facilitators, including Courtney Cogburn, PhD, Associate Professor at the School of Social Work.

View the overview of each week of that course here.

ICAAD’s previous educational programs include:

• Leading students at University of Queensland to conduct a comparative review of sentencing practices for GBV cases globally.
• Conducting a Universal Periodic Review (UPR) Training & Human Rights Lawyering program as Clinical Supervising Attorneys at the Leitner Center International Human Rights Clinic at Fordham University School of Law.
• Leading graduate and post-graduate students at University College London through a journey of advocacy — identifying strategic policy objectives from ICAAD and Linklaters’ prior research on structural discrimination in the United Kingdom, and researching issues impacting those most vulnerable.
• Facilitating a number of externships and internships for students from Columbia University, New York University, American University, and University of Queensland.