CSPH5111: Cultural Ways of Thinking about Health

Ideas and approaches to health, healing, and well-being can differ significantly in today’s diverse, complex and multi-cultural society. This course offers you the opportunity to step into different cultural communities beyond campus as they work to create health and reclaim vitality. In this hybrid class, you select from a menu of in-person, experiential, micro-immersion field trip opportunities offered during the semester. The in-person, experiential dimension of this class asks you to select a minimum of 20 in-person hours from the field trips and volunteer opportunities over the course of the semester. This in-person dimension builds your capacity to appreciate culturally different understandings of health and approaches to healing. Your experiential learning during the semester is supported by asynchronous readings and assignments as laid out in the Canvas site. The field trips are in-person events giving you first-hand experiential glimpses designed to help you “gain a feel” for culturally different systems of knowledge and value outlooks. These in-person experiences also give you a different standpoint from which to reflect back upon your own ideas of health through critical thinking and reflection. This work helps you to better recognize the culture you carry with you as you step into intercultural spaces. You will learn to better "see" what is often hidden in plain sight; what you have taken for granted as true; what you had not questioned. I ask you to challenge your own thinking and better recognize the culture you carry in your thinking as you experience culturally different systems of thought. This points to the critical self-reflection and cultural self-study work of the class. You will also apply this examination to the professional fields of your interest, sharing your insights with learners in other professions, bringing together interdisciplinary and intercultural learning. prereq: jr, sr, grad, or instr consent

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