DPO Advanced Courses

DPO Advanced Rationale

The inequitable distribution of social, economic, and political power in the United States and globally is sustained through systems of oppression, which represent a variety of discriminatory institutional beliefs and practices. These beliefs and practices obscure the origins and operations of systemic oppression in daily life, such that this inequitable power distribution is assumed to be the natural order. The Difference, Power, and Oppression requirement engages students in critical reflection specific to their field of study on the complexity of the structures, institutions, and ideologies that sustain systemic oppression, discrimination, and the inequitable distribution of systemic power and resources within and across communities. Such examinations will enhance and promote responsible, ethical, and anti-racist engagement by preparing students to understand and disrupt these systems as they manifest in their field.
 

DPO Advanced Learning Outcomes

Students in DPO Advanced will:

  1. Analyze how systemic power operates through the ascription of difference to reproduce structural inequities and how they and others in their field of study are positioned in relationship to those systems.
  2. Demonstrate, by using social justice theories, how historic constructions of racism and other forms of systemic oppression result in intersecting inequities – crossroads of oppression – experienced in current times (last 10 years).
  3. Compare approaches for dismantling racism and other systems of oppression within their field of study with the goal of advancing cultural, economic, social, and/or political equity.
     

DPO Advanced Criteria

Courses in DPO Advanced will:

  1. Be at least 3 credits and be at the 300-400 level.
  2. Be capped at 25 students (larger lectures with recitations capped at 25 are acceptable). Proposed exceptions to class size caps should be justified through the course proposal process and will be reviewed on an on-going basis by the Core Education Committee and the Difference, Power, and Oppression Director.
  3. Be regularly numbered departmental offerings rather than x99 or blanket number courses.
  4. Provide opportunities for students to reflect thoughtfully on their own identities and positions in relation to systems of oppression.
  5. Have as their central focus the study of the inequitable distribution of power within the framework of particular disciplines and course content.
  6. Be taken within the major or in the student’s field of study. Field of study can be defined as a course that relates to a student's major and/or future career.
  7. Provide illustrations of ways in which structural, institutional, and ideological oppression arise from socially defined meanings attributed to difference.
  8. Provide historical and contemporary (last 10 years) examples of difference, power, and oppression across cultural, economic, social, and/or political institutions.
  9. Focus primarily on Difference, Power, and Oppression in the United States, although global contexts and impacts of the United States are encouraged.
  10. Incorporate inclusive pedagogy activities and strategies (e.g., low-risk and ungraded, classroom discussion, small group work, debates, idea mapping, readings from diverse voices, contract grading, and labor-based grading).
  11. Must include learning materials that are authored or created by people of protected status (as defined by OSU’s discrimination and discriminatory harassment policy) that illustrate the resilience of their communities and how these assets are used to dismantle systems of oppression.
  12. Require instructors and recitation instructors to have ongoing training and continuing education (at least once every other year or as defined by the DPO director while teaching DPO) in intersectionality and/or other forms of social justice theories. Option for co-teaching with faculty with more expertise in DPO is encouraged as applicable through Memorandums of Understanding.