UPenn offers $9,949 ‘Social Justice Research Academy’ summer camp for high schoolers
An Ivy League school is offering a 'Social Justice Research Academy' for high school students next month, studying topics such as abortion, gun control, and 'LGBTQ rights.'
The University of Pennsylvania School of Arts and Sciences is offering the program, which is scheduled for July 5–26.
An Ivy League school is offering a “Social Justice Research Academy” for high school students next month, studying topics such as abortion, gun control, and “LGBTQ rights.”
The University of Pennsylvania School of Arts and Sciences is offering the program, which is scheduled for July 5–26. According to tuition data on the school’s website, a three-week program such as the “Social Justice Research Academy” costs $9,949 to attend.
“The Social Justice Research Academy brings students from around the world together for three weeks to dive deep into the past, present, and future of social justice,” the University of Pennsylvania’s web page for the academy says.
High schoolers will learn about a wide array of current issues from a social justice perspective.
“This summer, students will hear experts and advocates in the areas of gun control, framing historical narratives, the current national landscape of a woman’s right to choose, LGBTQ rights, the effects of poverty on children, and many other topics,” the description promises.
For context, previous subjects at the academy have included “climate change, immigration and refugee/asylum policy, LGBTQ rights, #BlackLivesMatter, disability studies, faith and social justice, interfaith leadership, intersectionality, affordable housing, prison reform, #MeToo, food deserts, social distancing as a privilege, access to health care, textbooks and curricular biases, anti-racism, anti-Semitism, music and civil rights, international human rights, race and popular culture.”
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In addition to courses, the academy will involve lectures, field trips to Philadelphia landmarks, and a capstone project.
Projects at previous academies have been a “graphic novel comparing sex education in China to that in the US,” “spoken word performance surrounding gun deaths among Black men in Philadelphia,” “slide show about the reception of American Muslim women who wear a hijab or not,” and a “video on redlining.”
Other colleges and universities are offering social justice-themed high school programs this summer. A program at Tulane University this month is teaching high schoolers about “queer theory” and “Black feminism.”
Another program beginning next month at Smith College in Massachusetts will explore topics such as “queer love stories” and “reproductive justice.”
“[W]e interrogate the histories of gender in sport and physical education and use critical feminist and queer theories to decipher the ways sport creates, supports, and resists dominant ideologies of inequality,” a description for a course on “Gender in Sport” says.
Campus Reform contacted the University of Pennsylvania for comment. This article will be updated accordingly.