The Social Justice Research Academy brings students together with Penn instructors to examine the historical importance and the contemporary relevance of struggles to overcome inequality and injustice. Topics vary from year to year, but include a selection of significant historical struggles (such as the American Revolution, slavery and abolition, suffrage, civil rights and affirmative action) as well as those that define our present (for example: environmentalism, affordable housing, immigration, LGBTQ rights, Black Lives Matter, and #MeToo). As they explore the characteristics of effective community leadership and successful movement-building, students develop leadership skills as well as research and analytical skills.

This academy has been designed for students who are interested in: society, economy, politics, and environment doing research supplemented by photography, video, music, art, or digital design developing skills for leadership and organizational development doing projects related to freedom, justice, equality, sustainability, peace, and fairness Program Director: R. Scott Hanson R. Scott Hanson is a lecturer in the Department of History at the University of Pennsylvania, where he teaches courses in American history on a range of topics. He earned his PhD from the University of Chicago in 2002 and has been at Penn since 2012. Dr. Hanson is also an affiliate of the Pluralism Project at Harvard University and the author of City of Gods: Religious Freedom, Immigration, and Pluralism in Flushing, Queens (New York: Fordham University Press, 2016).

View your Syllabus here

Learn more: https://summer.sas.upenn.edu/programs/high-school/academies/social-justice