Deval Patrick Endorses Elizabeth Warren

For the past six years, Governor Patrick has led Massachusetts with a strong belief in the importance of social justice, generational responsibility, and the politics of conviction, not convenience.

I'm looking forward to working with Governor Patrick to level the playing field for middle class families and to give working people across the Commonwealth a fair shot at success.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Democrats are lucky to have two strong candidates running for the Party's nomination for United States Senate. Both are compelling people with a strong message. Both are working hard to earn a place on the ballot, and both are running positive campaigns. I wish them both well.

I think you know how strongly I feel about the importance of campaigning and governing with a view toward our generational responsibility and the politics of conviction as our compass. Whether through her efforts in public life (through the creation of the Consumer Protection Agency and her commitment to reforms in our financial system) or in private life (through the generation of students she has inspired to seek social justice), Elizabeth has shown that she shares these values.

The American Dream defines what it means to be American. Yet for too many people in the Commonwealth today, the American Dream is up for grabs. Elizabeth has lived the American Dream, and knows that it is worth fighting for. She understands that government has a role to play, not in solving every problem in every person's life, but in helping people help themselves. We need her thoughtful, pragmatic, compassionate, and reasoned voice in the Senate now to restore that Dream and help put it back in reach of all Americans.

The reality is that her Republican opponent has made very different choices. Time and time again -- whether through his votes against summer jobs for our youth, against ending billions of dollars in subsidies to oil and gas companies, or allowing student loan interest rates to increase -- Scott Brown has shown he is willing to put the politics of convenience ahead of the people of Massachusetts. That has to end.

Elizabeth will put an end to that -- because she knows that this election is about you, not her. She has built a strong grassroots organization that reaches into every corner of the state, and she is working at that level, personally and through her team, to let people get to know her intellect and her heart and to listen for the wisdom of regular people. She knows that we have a stake in our neighbors' dreams and struggles as much as our own, and that making tough decisions now is the only way to make a better tomorrow. I ask you to help her help us by getting involved in the campaign, bringing others to the cause, and voting for Elizabeth in the primary and in November.

Consider starting by joining the Warren campaign's grassroots organizers at one of over 40 canvasses next week. It's a perfect way to hear from voters about the issues they care about most and to help to make this their campaign. Find out about a canvass near you here.

Elizabeth Warren shares the values you and I care about, and I believe she will be a tremendous Senator for this Commonwealth. I look forward to partnering with her as we continue our work to leave Massachusetts better and stronger for a generation to come.

University of Massachusetts

School of Education

Department of Student Development (SD)

Social Justice Education Concentration

Social Justice Education is an interdisciplinary graduate program of study with a focus on social diversity and social justice education particularly as they apply to formal educational systems, kindergarten through higher education. The masters program of study focuses upon the use of reflective practice in Social Justice Education; the doctoral program of study focuses upon research that is informed by the use of reflective practice in SJE and the development on systemic approaches building and maintaining socially just educational learning environments. Our goals are to generate knowledge about social justice education and to apply new knowledge to the design and delivery of effective social justice educational techniques and systems.

Social Justice Education's central focus is the preparation of professional educators, counselors, and change agents who are able to understand and work effectively with social justice issues in formal educational settings. It provides graduate degree programs of study for educational professionals who teach and practice at all levels of the educational system, kindergarten through college. We hope to attract educational professionals whose primary responsibilities include teaching, school guidance and counseling, the supervision or professional development of teachers or school counselors, education administrators, student affairs programmers, special educators, or college residential educators.

Social Justice Education

Bodies of Knowledge and Practice

The approaches to theory and practice taken by Social Justice Education are rooted in the civil rights social movements of the past forty years, within which concepts such as social justice, oppression and liberation are central categories for analyzing, evaluating and transforming interlocking systems of discriminatory institutional structures and cultural practices and social behavior.

Students in social justice education study the inequities that people experience on the basis of their social group memberships, through systems of constraint and advantage reproduced through the social processes of exploitation, marginalization, powerlessness, cultural imperialism, and violence.

Social justice education pays attention to the resources that individuals, families, social groups and communities bring to personal and social change and to the transformation of educational institutions and practices.

Social justice education also pays careful attention to process in educational and structural interventions and practices. This attention to process includes balancing the emotional with the cognitive; acknowledging and supporting the personal while analyzing and intervening in social systems; attending to social relations within and among families, schools and communities; developing competencies in collaboration and interpersonal and intergroup relationships as well as education and advocacy.

The bodies of knowledge, research and practice that inform social justice education are interdisciplinary, drawn from anthropology; Black and ethnic studies; cognitive, developmental and social psychology; education; gay, lesbian bisexual, and transgender studies; history; literature; Judaic and middle eastern studies; women's studies; and sociology. It includes the following areas:

theories and research on socialization that inform the development of social identity and social group affiliations within families, schools, communities and other social institutions;

the formation, maintenance, and interaction among in-groups and out-groups, and interventions that foster positive inter-group relations;

prejudice and discrimination, the dynamics of power and privilege, and interlocking systems of oppression;

forms of resistance and processes of empowerment and liberation created by individuals, families, and communities, and implemented within educational and other social systems;

socio-cultural and historical contexts for, and dynamics within and among the specific manifestations of oppression (ageism, anti-Semitism, ableism, classism, ethnocentrism, heterosexism, racism, sexism, ) in educational and other social systems;

socio-cultural and historical contexts for the Civil Rights Movement and other social liberation movements that found inspiration in it (such as the women's liberation movement, the lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender rights movements, the disability rights movement, and liberation movements for communities of color);

the interaction of students and families within multicultural schools and communities;

models for designing, delivering and evaluating curriculum-based social justice education;

models for designing, delivering and evaluating system-based social justice interventions within or among families, schools, school systems, and communities

social justice intervention strategies such as conflict resolution, collaboration, or advocacy

These bodies of knowledge provide the basis for the core competencies included in the masters, CAGS and doctoral programs.

For further discussion of the approaches taken in this program, please refer to M. Adams, L.A. Bell, P. Griffin (Eds) (2007), Teaching for Diversity and Social Justice: Second Edition (New York : Routledge).

For more information about SJE, please click the links at left

UMass also offers a doctorate in Social Justice.

Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.