LEAD Inquiries

Justice

In a just world, everyone would be treated fairly. However, climate change, economic exploitation and profound income inequality, institutionalized violence against marginalized people, and disparate health impacts for vulnerable groups in the face of COVID-19 all highlight the ways the actual world is profoundly unjust. It is vitally important to think deeply and carefully about those injustices and to explore the ways that they structure people’s lives.

In this Inquiry, students study what injustice is and the ways that it plays out in different areas of social life, focusing in particular on racial injustice, gender injustice, economic injustice, and environmental injustice, as well as how those different systems intersect with and build off of each other.

Climate

Climate change may be the single most important issue facing us today. Understanding such a multi-faceted problem requires taking into account not just scientific accounts of climate change and its impact, but the social, cultural and political dynamics that have shaped the way we live in - and use - the natural world.

Idea of the West

This Inquiry challenges students to interrogate the processes through which the idea of “The West” has come to be geographically centered on Western Europe and the USA. It invites students to vigorously debate the ideas, practices, and historical processes which have catapulted the West into a position of global preeminence. And it encourages students to consider how as teachers and learners in the modern US, we are also participants in unmaking and re-making the idea and identity of “The West.”

Public and Environmental Health

The coronavirus pandemic has made public health a major part of our national discourse. In this Inquiry, you’ll use your Core Knowledge and Methods requirements to explore questions such as:

• How do scientific knowledge and knowledge of human behavior shape policy decisions?
• What is the relationship between health and climate change?
• How are health outcomes affected by racial and economic disparities?

Students in the Public and Environmental Health Inquiry take five classes and complete a 1-credit Integrated Learning Portfolio. Courses in the Public and Environmental Health Inquiry (PEHI) give students the ability to engage with these and other questions. Students build a strong foundation for thinking critically about public health and communicating what they know effectively and creatively.

Gender and Power

We are living through a historic period with unprecedented numbers of women and LGBTQ serving in elected offices across the US. At this time, we must not lose sight of the fact that we are far from achieving sustainable and systemic gender equity. The Gender and Power (GAP) Inquiry will offer an interdisciplinary examination of how gender and sexuality shape aspects of our daily lives, and how they are related to other social hierarchies such as race, ethnicity, nationality, class, and ability.

This Inquiry also offers an opportunity for greater depth in the study of gender and sexuality through the WGSX minor.

Latinx Americas

There are many Latinx Americas across our hemisphere, including the United States, with the second-largest Spanish-speaking population in the world. A hemispheric perspective on the history, politics, and cultures of the Americas allows us to understand the diversity of Latinx Americas, contextualize Latinx contributions to U.S. society, and view the U.S.’s development as inseparable from its American neighbors.

In this inquiry, students will understand fundamental cultural and historical contributions of Latinx and Latin American communities to societies in the Americas.