Organizational and Institutional Power

Power structures often order our personal and professional lives--from macro-level institutional frameworks governed by collective laws and policies to micro-level organizational relationships shaped through individual actions and practices. Some of these structures are designed to offer clear, open, and equitable social benefits for diverse populations. Others are situated within systems that obscure their harmful effects on specific, historically marginalized, groups. This course will offer learners a critical lexicon for identifying, describing, and engaging with organizational and institutional expressions of power. In addition to examining mixed-methods research, historical examples, and contemporary case studies that demonstrate relationships between power, structural hierarchies, and difference, learners will participate in simulations that highlight the personal “power maps” each of us navigate in social landscapes--across real-world professional spaces--every day.