The University of St. Thomas

Major & Minor

The Justice and Peace Studies department now offers a revised curriculum, with three concentrations to offers skillsets for a variety of career tracks, along with an updated general major. We also continue to offer a minor, which has been revised as well.

Leadership for Social Justice

The Leadership for Social Justice concentration helps students anticipate and begin preparing for the full arc of a career in which successful community organizing requires them to institutionalize the changes they seek, through social entrepreneurship and nonprofit management. Click here for details.

Conflict Transformation

The Conflict Transformation concentration prepares students to analyze the dynamics and identify transformative opportunities in conflicts at multiple levels, from interpersonal to international, while developing practical skills in mediation and conflict resolution through partnerships with local practitioners and organizations that exemplify best practices in the field. Click here for details.

Public Policy Analysis & Advocacy

The Public Policy Analysis and Advocacy concentration develops social analysis skills for public policy formation, evidence-based research and argumentation, as well as communication and networking skills for effective advocacy around issues such as environmental sustainability and climate change, foreign policy and peacebuilding, and economic justice and social welfare.Click here for details.

"Generalist" options

Core courses for all JPST majors and minors make use of the four stages of the Circle of Praxis:

  1. Experience (actual and vicarious) of poverty, injustice, violence and marginalization.
  2. Descriptive analysis: Empirical study of the economic, political, social, and cultural realities of society, and the historical events that produce them.
  3. Normative analysis: Moral judgment on existing societies; study of alternative possibilities; and analysis of the moral values at stake.
  4. Action possibilities: Strategies and skills for transforming society from its present condition to a better condition.

General JPST major and minor options are especially suitable for students who wish to complement another major with social justice perspectives, analysis and skillsets. Click here for details.

Not to worry!

Students who signed up for a Justice and Peace Studies major or minor prior to 2012 can either switch to one of the new concentrations or continue with their current program. 
Click here for details concerning the pre-2012 major and minor.

Other resources