Integrating social justice and diversity discourse into existing classes within the business school

Abstract

Creating opportunities for social justice and diversity discourse within the classroom is increasingly becoming a priority for universities, and especially within the business school. While a designated course requirement may be a useful way to introduce students to social justice and diversity in an in-depth manner, cognitive learning theory suggests that multiple opportunities are needed to engage with such complex topics. In this paper, we propose the use of online discussion prompts that connect social justice and diversity to existing courses as a mechanism to promote expanded and more frequent learning opportunities throughout a student’s academic journey. An experiment within an in-person introductory business course is showcased.