<html><body><div style="color:#000; background-color:#fff; font-family:times new roman, new york, times, serif;font-size:12pt"><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Calibri; "><div><b>MA in Community Education, Equality and Social Activism - National University of Ireland Maynooth</b></div><div><strong>This practitioner MA brings together social movement organisers, community educators, grassroots activists and newcomers interested in social justice for a year of "learning from each other's struggles".</strong>The course includes social analysis (what equality is and how inequality works); radical democratic methodology (community education for liberation) and political strategy (learning from the struggles of popular movements for justice). Participants develop projects aimed at improving their own practice as social movement organisers or radical educators, to bring back their knowledge to wider struggles for social change. The course
is grounded in democratic learning methods, challenging intellectual work and the validation of social movement knowledge.</div><div><em>From struggles over land to women’s liberation and from union organising to community activism, the struggle for equality and social change has been driven by social movements from below. Today, ecological campaigners have put climate change on the agenda, global justice activists have highlighted the crisis of neo-liberal capitalism and popular movements have changed the world from South Africa to Eastern Europe and from Latin America to the Arab world.</em></div><em><div>As austerity politics bites, cuts target the poorest communities and neo-liberal “business as usual” tries to set aside democracy and popular organisations, social movements are rethinking their strategies and communities are taking a hard look at their own understandings. What can we learn from each other’s struggles for equality and social
justice - and what do we already know about how to change the world?</div></em><div><em>This course brings together students who want to learn how to make equality and social justice into realities, with more experienced activists in community education and social movements looking for space to reflect on their own work, and a team of staff who are experienced teachers and researchers, community educators and social movement practitioners - to form a community of practitioners learning from each other’s experiences and struggles to create new kinds of “really useful knowledge” and develop alternatives.</em></div><div><strong>The MA in Community Education, Equality and Social Activism is now approaching its third year</strong>(autumn 2012 - summer 2013), bringing together social movement organisers, community educators, grassroots activists and newcomers interested in social justice from Ireland and abroad. Students and staff work together to
bring out what we already know about how ordinary people can challenge structures of oppression and injustice and change the world for the better, to learn from each other and to develop our practice and theory.</div><div>Developed by the Departments of Sociology and Adult & Community Education at NUI Maynooth, the course attracts a very diverse body of students from a wide range of movements and situations. Classes (held over two days) explore three core areas: social analysis (what equality is and how inequality works); radical democratic methodology (community education for liberation) and political strategy (learning from the struggles of popular movements for justice). Following two 12-week terms, participants complete thesis projects aimed at improving their own practice as social movement organisers or radical educators, to bring back their knowledge to wider struggles for social change. The course is grounded in democratic learning methods,
challenging intellectual work and the validation of social movement knowledge.</div><div><strong>More information on the course, </strong>including student feedback, can be found at <a title="http://ceesa-ma.blogspot.com/2011/12/ceesa-ma-2012-entry.html" href="http://ceesa-ma.blogspot.com/2011/12/ceesa-ma-2012-entry.html">http://ceesa-ma.blogspot.com/2011/12/ceesa-ma-2012-entry.html</a>. A flavour of the course can be gleaned from the short student video at <a title="http://ceesa-ma.blogspot.com/2011/06/ceesa-student-video-about-course.html" href="http://ceesa-ma.blogspot.com/2011/06/ceesa-student-video-about-course.html">http://ceesa-ma.blogspot.com/2011/06/ceesa-student-video-about-course.html</a> as well as information from past public events: the Masked Activists Ball launch party <a title="http://ceesa-ma.blogspot.com/2010/03/launch-party-masked-activists-ball.html"
href="http://ceesa-ma.blogspot.com/2010/03/launch-party-masked-activists-ball.html">http://ceesa-ma.blogspot.com/2010/03/launch-party-masked-activists-ball.html</a>, the May workshop Beyond the crisis: global justice, equality, social movements <a href="http://ceesa-ma.blogspot.com/2011/04/beyond-crisis-global-justice-equality.html">http://ceesa-ma.blogspot.com/2011/04/beyond-crisis-global-justice-equality.html</a> and the November conference New agendas in social movement studies <a href="http://ceesa-ma.blogspot.com/2011/10/social-movements-conference-at-maynooth.html">http://ceesa-ma.blogspot.com/2011/10/social-movements-conference-at-maynooth.html</a>.</div><h4>The deadline for applications is Monday April 30th.</h4><div>Full details about the course are at <a title="http://ceesa-ma.blogspot.com" href="http://ceesa-ma.blogspot.com/">http://ceesa-ma.blogspot.com</a>.</div></span></div></div></body></html>