Social and Environmental Justice

Nineteen of the 20 warmest years recorded have occurred in the past two decades. People across the world are suffering from the impacts of climate and environmental degradation, but it is those who have done the least to contribute who are often most affected.

Working in project teams, you'll focus on a real-world community and explore methods that can be used to take action for climate and environmental justice.



What previous students say

"The online lectures were engaging and we as students were able to contribute our own thoughts and ideas on the topic of climate justice […] the lecturers were very organised and […] genuinely interested and passionate in the topics they were talking to us about."

What will I do in this module?

The module has three key elements:

  1. Exploring the Environmental Justice Atlas – a repository of global environmental injustice examples.
  2. Looking at real-world case studies of environmental and climate injustice.
  3. Trying out a range of participatory methods, such as photovoice and stakeholder mapping.

What skills will I develop?

  • Climate and sustainability literacy
  • Collaboration and teamwork
  • Critical thinking
  • Critical reflection

You'll also gain an understanding of the ways that your course contributes to tackling these complex problems.

The module encourages you to reflect upon your sense of self and self-knowledge. This will involve considering concepts of personal identity and equality from a range of perspectives, including psychological, sociological, environmental, political and historical viewpoints.

We'll look at the attributes we have, for example age, gender, ethnicity, socio-economic identity, disability, and how these describe us, but also how these lead to labels and stereotypes. We'll also look at the stereotypical perceptions we hold of others.



What previous students say

"…it has continuously been the highlight of my week. It’s a brilliantly delivered chance to properly express myself."
"This module works well for those who want to take a deeper look into themselves, and who are in touch with their emotions."

What will I do in this module?

The module has three key elements:

  1. The chance to take part in activities, to find out more about who you are.
  2. The chance to engage in discussions in a safe and supportive environment about issues you feel passionately about.
  3. The chance to express yourself creatively and talk about where you feel you fit in the world in a non-judgemental environment.

What skills will I develop?

  • Self-compassion
  • Confidence
  • Self-awareness
  • Critical and reflective thinking

You'll also contemplate different forms of information, and realise and challenge stereotypes. You may even discover skills you never knew you had!

In this module, you'll reflect on your personal experiences of race and racism by understanding your self-concept to nurture your community cultural wealth.

We'll explore interdisciplinary perspectives through gaining knowledge and understanding of the historical context, influential thinkers, anti-racist activists, theories, models and methods that underpin race and racism in the UK and from broader global perspectives.

You'll work with each other to understand anti-racist practices acquiring skills, attitudes and behaviours to reduce personal and structural discrimination and inequalities.



What previous students say

"Thank you very much for your delivery of [this] module. I feel as though I'm learning a lot and I really appreciate the opportunity we've been given to take a course like this at ARU."
"This module provided the opportunity for me to learn about the historical context, activists, influential people and methods surrounding racism in the UK. I feel that this module would be beneficial for everyone and would help deconstruct individual and structural racist ideologies and views, to create an equal society."

What will I do in this module?

The module has three key elements:

  1. You'll attend lectures and engage in debates to extend their knowledge base on racism and anti-racist theory.
  2. You'll be provided, through groupwork and online activities, with the analytical tools to understand and challenge racism.
  3. Through lectures, group discussions, and interactive tasks, you'll be helped to make connections between critical debates in anti-racism and the implications for practice.

What skills will I develop?

  • Reflection
  • Creativity

You'll also develop critical knowledge and understanding of personal experience, and skills, attitudes and behaviours to reduce personal and structural discrimination and inequalities.

Animals are generally considered to be beings that are sentient, but they also contribute to the world's economy. How can we balance these two ideas?

Why do we recognise animals as sentient beings? How do the relationships we develop with animals impact their treatment?

How do animals contribute to the economy? How do we recognise the rights of animals and the rights of animal owners and what actions can we take to support this?

How has human intervention impacted on ecosystems? How can individuals influence change with respect to how animals are viewed and used?

These questions will all be explored in this module.



What will I do in this module?

The module has three key elements:

  1. Discussions – most weeks there is the opportunity to discuss in detail various topics relating to animal ownership. It is important that you share your own knowledge and experience, everyone can contribute in this module.
  2. Peer assessment groups – the lobby paper has two formative steps, and what you have produced is shared in a support group that provides peer feedback alongside the tutor feedback.
  3. Continuous reflection – there is a weekly reflective activity, and at the end of the trimester, all the pieces of reflection can be combined to make the reflective piece for the second assignment.

What skills will I develop?

  • Digital fluency
  • Critical evaluation
  • Logical and well-reasoned arguments
  • Balancing ethical and economic perspectives

These skills will not only be of value in the rest of your studies, but are also invaluable for employment. You'll consider the impact of other disciplines as well as your own to prepare you for the workplace.

In a globalised world, an understanding of language with its nuances, complexities and cultural underpinning is vital for successful communication.

This module explores language and all its different forms on both a societal and a personal level examining areas such as language and emotion, language and personal identity, and language and power.

Language is a function that underpins so much of our daily life and interaction with others, but how often do we reflect on it and all its intricacies and possibilities? This module offers you the opportunity to do just that.



What previous students say

"The Ruskin Module for me was absolutely brilliant, because it was so collaborative. It was a brilliant way to learn from students and listening to everyone's opinions was amazing. Being able to work together with other students ... has really broadened my mind and improved my critical thinking."

What will I do in this module?

The module has three key elements:

  1. You'll explore and examine your own relationship and perception of language in ways that you may not have considered before.
  2. In groups, we'll carry out activities and discussions that will investigate our attitudes and sensitivity to our own language and those of others, including minority and dying languages.
  3. We'll also analyse our reactions to aspects of language such as accent, vocabulary and societal groupings.

What skills will I develop?

  • Creativity
  • Critical and reflective thinking
  • Applying knowledge to individual disciplines and circumstances
  • Collaboration and teamwork

This problem-solving module provides guidance, support and information to equip you to face current environmental challenges through science-based approaches, legal mechanisms, governmental and economic policies both at national, European and international level.

We'll assess current and future environmental policies alongside environmental problems such as biodiversity loss, water security, climate change and food production, and consider the significant challenges they pose, which admit scientific, economic and administrative responses as readily as legal ones.

Throughout the module, you'll plan and design environmental solutions for stakeholders as part of a ‘live brief’. You'll be part of a collaboration of academics and professionals to look at environmental law, the sharing of different approaches and new ways of thinking about environmental problems, balancing alternative interpretations and conflicting interests and generating new solutions.

By collaborating, you'll build your employability and develop new knowledge on sustainability and understanding of the multiplicity of perspectives from which environmental choices can be addressed.

Sustainability in this context is broadly interpreted as achieving resilience and sustainable relationships between actors to improve the human condition and the natural environment.



What will I do in this module?

The module has two key elements:

  1. The main focus is on the protection of water, land and air to prevent pollution and to secure environmental quality objectives.
  2. The module will conclude by examining some cross-cutting issues, such as enforcement, information access, participation and alternative strategies for environmental protection.

What skills will I develop?

  • Research
  • Communication
  • Critical thinking
  • Ethics
  • Information management
  • Independent work
  • Problem-solving

This module will also:

  • Help you to develop a full understanding of environmental issues to be able to work on professionals’ priority areas, making you more confident to access the labour market.
  • Support your career development by offering practical exercises that will allow you to employ your knowledge effectively.

In this module you will study the practical and theoretical aspects of protest actions that have emphasised the body and its performance to gain visibility in the social movements.

It will provide you with an understanding of performances of protest that brought significant change through the 20th and 21st centuries and a historical context of how the body is used in resistance movements.



What will I do in this module?

The module has two key elements:

  1. You'll study, discuss, and reflect upon physical interventions that have created modes of protest in the 20th and 21st centuries.
  2. During the seminars and workshops, you'll make and create actions and gestures that will be part of your own performance of protest.

What skills will I develop?

  • Critical thinking
  • Teamwork
  • Leadership
  • Wellbeing
  • Lateral intelligence
  • Creativity, including in the workplace

ARU Peterborough is a new institution within the City of Peterborough, and this module provides an exciting opportunity for students to integrate and network with members of the community.

Whether you live, study, or work in Peterborough, or do more than one of these things in tandem, you are a member of local civic life. As part of this module, you'll have the opportunity to develop and enhance this relationship, by promoting active citizenship and empowering you to seek positive social change within the community.

Underpinned by the tenets of community organising, this module has been co-developed with Peterborough Citizens, the local chapter of Citizens UK.

Within this module you'll be introduced to the core principles of community organising – power analysis, working relationally, negotiation, the five-step method to social change – with sessions delivered by professional organisers from Peterborough Citizens.

Following the introduction of the core knowledge and understanding of organising, and an exploration of social justice and the idea of community, you will be invited to evaluate the responses of a listening campaign to identify areas for change.

Based upon this, you'll work in interdisciplinary groups to develop and implement a plan of action to contribute towards positive social change within the local community.

Please note that this module will be delivered face to face on the Peterborough campus.



What will I do in this module?

The module has three key elements:

  1. Understanding the role of the community and impact of addressing social justice issues in the context of the city of Peterborough.
  2. Working directly with Peterborough Citizens UK on a live campaign.
  3. Developing interpersonal skills.

What skills will I develop?

  • Critical thinking
  • Teamwork and collaboration
  • Problem-solving
  • Networking
  • Time management
  • Oral and written communication
  • Academic writing
  • Content creation
  • Research

In this module, we'll explore the connections and relations between issues such as LGBTQ+ rights, race, disability, and political ideologies, and the role of social systems such as education in promoting notions of social justice.

We'll consider how these issues are interpreted in different disciplines and explore how social justice is experienced. You'll reflect on the interplay between issues and your own subject discipline, the role of social justice in your own professional field, and more widely in society.

We think about these issues as they relate to us as individuals, but we use theory, including social identity theory, agency/structure, queer theory, critical race theory, and transformative learning theory, to underwrite our exploration of them.



What previous students say

"The Ruskin Module honestly has been my favourite module, I hope other students get as much out of it as I did."
Chelsea Holland
Third-year student

What will I do in this module?

The module has three key elements:

  1. Seminar-style online sessions weekly, which involve breakout room discussions and role-plays.
  2. Online Canvas materials that take you through a range of grey and academic literature to develop understanding of theories and to explore case studies relating to social justice in the 21st century.
  3. A speech or community project. While this is not assessed as a performance, you have the opportunity to give your speech to your fellow students if you choose to.

What skills will I develop?

  • Critical thinking
  • Analytical thinking
  • Reflection
  • Theoretical analysis
  • Speech writing
  • Public speaking
  • Communication
  • Interdisciplinary thinking and communication
  • Use of ICT for verbal communication (e.g., making a video or podcast)
  • Data literacy

Fashion has become disposable, but at what cost?

In this module, we'll examine our own personal responsibility towards clothes and explore the real cost of fashion on the environment and on the people who work in the sector.

 We'll use a range of multi-disciplinary tools for this: diaries, reflection, lifecycle assessment, ethics models and the UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).



What previous students say

"This module has allowed me to evaluate how I am positively and/or negatively, directly and/or indirectly impacting the environment. I have a better understanding of the benefits of actively being sustainable and ethics. Some skills I have learnt from this module are time management, creative thinking, and using my initiative."
"From the get-go, the discussions inspired me to think differently and especially deeper into the elaborate world of the fashion industry. I feel that the vastness in the [online] discussion boards simply reflects not only the ... courses [represented], but the differing cultures, backgrounds, and nationalities that the students represent, which creates a plethora of ideas, which is such a breath of fresh air for the module, significantly positively impacting my learning."

What will I do in this module?

The module has three key elements:

  1. You'll first reflect on your own clothing consumption, before exploring an item of clothing and the brand behind it. You'll critically examine the impact of this item in detail, using the lifecycle assessment tools. You'll also examine the ethics of the clothing brand behind that item, and how they are approaching the SDGs. All this critical analysis will lead to consideration of what could be done differently.
  2. During this journey into our clothes, you'll have the opportunity to work in a group to create a poster to inform others about the real truth behind our clothes.
  3. The final work on the module is to write a report about your journey through your own responsibility as a clothing consumer, the lifecycle of an item in your wardrobe, and an analysis of the brand, finishing the report of with recommendations for the future.

What skills will I develop?

  • Application of sustainability tools and models
  • Critical thinking
  • Ethical thinking
  • Creativity
  • Teamwork
  • Digital literacy

The module provides you with the opportunity to explore your identity and place within a town or city.

The interdisciplinary approach is modelled on ARU campus cities and includes a wide range of perspectives from human geography, architecture, history, sociology, literature, linguistics, to health, engineering and life science.

The module will be informed by expertise from different disciplines and is centred on you, as part of a team, exploring a particular aspect of urban life that relates to your personal and disciplinary interest.



What previous students say

"The exploration of my city has allowed me to see it in a new light. I have attained a greater understanding of the complex issues facing my community and the potential solutions that are available. This knowledge is critical in developing a sustainable city, as it helps to identify what is working and where there are gaps."
"I have developed the skills to identify problems, find their root cause, the people responsible for them, and find an effective solution ... This project has helped me develop my critical thinking ability, work in a diverse culture, and has made me able to propose solutions to the core problems of society based on my personal as well as management officials’ actions."

What will I do in this module?

The module has two key elements:

  1. Exploring your identity and place within your university city, Chelmsford or Cambridge, taking a wide range of perspectives from human geography, architecture, history, sociology, literature, and the arts, to health, engineering and life science.
  2. As part of a team, you'll explore and research a specified wicked problem of urban life as a project. You'll be asked to relate the challenge to your personal and disciplinary interests.

What skills will I develop?

  • Problem-solving
  • Taking in interdisciplinary perspective
  • Teamwork

This module asks you to identify issues that affect your community. Through a focus on developing an understanding of community organising, you'll learn how you can help move your community from the world as it is now, to the world as you would like it to be.



What previous students say

"I felt fortunate to have team colleagues from various academic and cultural backgrounds, so the richness of ideas and originality of thoughts and opinions as well as personal encounters on different topics was very evident."
"I’ve learnt that I need to do more for my community, and when I see and believe that something needs a change for the better, that I should help to make the change rather than just leaving it to others."

What will I do in this module?

The module has three key elements:

  1. Understanding that if we work together, we can make positive changes in our community, that we would not be able to make alone.
  2. Learning about community organising and enjoying some ‘taster training’ from Citizens UK.
  3. Learning how you can be involved in community organising at ARU after this module, responding to issues that matter to you and developing a range of transferable skills.

What skills will I develop?

  • Team-working and collaboration
  • Communication
  • Critical and reflective thinking