LOC 211-0 Intro to Organization Theory & Practice (1 Unit)   Examines major organizational behavior theories and practices through organizational analysis.

LOC 213-0 Cognition in Contexts (1 Unit)   There are two goals for this course: (1) to equip you with some concepts and methods about cognition and learning that are useful for studying these phenomena ‘in the wild’ and then (2) to put these concepts and methods to use in a design/change project of your own.

LOC 214-0 Culture and Cognition (1 Unit)   Research and theory on the interrelatedness of culture and thought. Combined with LRN_SCI 214-0; may not receive credit for both courses.

LOC 214-BR Culture and Cognition: SESP Leadership Institute (1 Unit)   Research and theory on the interrelatedness of culture and thought. This version of LOC 214 is only for students participating in the SESP Leadership Institute. Students may not receive credit for the SLI version and LRN_SCI 214-0 / LOC 214-0.

LOC 306-0 Studies in Organizational Change (1 Unit)   Examines theories and methods of organizational change through analysis of organizational adaptations; applies theories from learning sciences and organizational behavior.

LOC 308-0 Redesigning Everyday Organizations (1 Unit)   Concepts and methods for understanding and studying cognition and learning and putting these concepts and methods to use in a design/change project. Taught with LRN_SCI 308-0; may not receive credit for both courses.

LOC 309-0 Team Dynamics (1 Unit)   In this course, we will explore team dynamics, those forces that influence a team's behavior and performance, and what can enhance or hinder potential for impact. We will analyze the contributors to team functioning and their interrelationships at multiple levels: intrapersonal, interpersonal, group and organizational. Key topics include team development, team make-up and roles, leadership and followership, decision-making, navigating conflict, collaboration and competition, effective communication, content vs. process, diversity and in-group/out-group tensions. Throughout the class, students will be analyzing and applying concepts through case studies and simulations. Assignments to demonstrate mastery include regular written individual papers and a team project. This course is suitable for undergraduate students in LOC, Human Development in Context, and related majors throughout Northwestern that are interested in leadership, teams/groups or organizational change. Taught with HDC 309-0; may not receive credit for both courses.

LOC 311-0 Tools for Organizational Analysis (1 Unit)   Understanding cause-and-effect relationships pertaining to organizational behavior and performance.

LOC 312-0 Modern Organization and Innovations (1 Unit)   Advances in technologies, from computation to analytics to new models of management and organizations, has radically transformed both every day work and classic models of management and organization. This course takes a novel approach to understanding these transformations by partnering a SESP faculty member with industry leaders and change agents to identify and analyze changing organizational forms and the implications for work in the contemporary economy. In doing so, this course will expose students to variants in organizational models, for example, from the highly institutionalized, yet ever changing, digital firm to firm-market hybrids that supply branded service yet do not employ the providers or own the assets that provide services. Students will have weekly analytic assignments that prepare for and reflect on industry co-instructor sessions as well as a final team project. This course is suitable for undergraduate students in LOC, social policy, and related majors throughout northwestern that are interested in leadership or organizational change. This advanced, highly interactive course fulfills new Learning and Organizational Change (LOC) requirements and is open to LOC students and beyond.

LOC 313-0 Learning and Thinking in Organizations (1 Unit)   Learning & Thinking in Organizations explores human judgment and decision making under conditions of uncertainty. You will learn to recognize recurring patterns in your own cognition and that of the people around you, and examine the ways those tendencies can lead people to better or worse courses of action. The class opens with a focus on the work of two research psychologists, Amos Tversky and Daniel Kahneman, who developed an important framework for understanding how people reach conclusions and make decisions. Their work formed the foundation of the field of behavioral economics. As we move through the quarter, we will draw on this framework to analyze human judgment and organizational decisionmaking in the domains of medicine, public health, criminal justice, and sports. We will investigate ways to use insights from research to improve the functioning of organizations, with a goal of making life better for the people that work in them and the people they serve. In the final project, working either independently or in a group, you will research an organizational phenomenon and develop a design for change using the theoretical perspectives from the course. Grading is based on quizzes, a midterm, and a final project.

LOC 347-0 Mapping and Spatial Analysis for Social Issues (1 Unit)   The focus of the course is on using the power of geospatial analysis to identify, understand, and make recommendations about addressing social, racial, and other inequities, including access to healthy food, environmental pollution, policing, etc. Students will learn basic use of the ArcGIS online program to support geospatial analysis.

LOC 351-0 Topics in Learning and Organizational Change (1 Unit)   Advanced work on special topics.

SESP 114-0 Summer Internship (0 Unit)  

SESP 115-0 Internship (0 Unit)  

SESP 116-0 Finding Your Path (0 Unit)   A continuation of Finding Your Path: Pathways and Future Possibilities (SESP 251), a course that supports second-year students most impacted by the historical and contemporary realities of classism and racism as they map their path forward to career fulfillment. This class is a 0 credit class in which Pathways students conduct a search for a summer internship and then complete said internship.

SESP 195-1 Civic Engagement 1- Participatory Policymaking (1 Unit)   Policy implementation involves more than just identifying and researching options, policymakers must, consider design program design, costs & sustainability; political feasibility, and building political support. In this class, you will learn how to design policy for implementation through Northwestern’s Participatory Budgeting process.

SESP 195-2 Civic Engagement 2: Participatory Budgeting (1 Unit)   Democracy gives limited opportunities for citizens to influence decision-making. In this class you will learn to implement open democracy innovations, that are more inclusive, more representative, and lead to better policy outcomes, by implementing a campus-wide participatory budgeting process, where community decides how to spend $1000 to address climate change.

SESP 195-3 Civic Engagement 3: Organizing, Gathering & Policy implementation (1 Unit)   How do we motivate people to take action? In this class, you will learn the techniques of relational organizing (canvassing, one-on-ones, public narrative), designing civic gatherings (Civic Saturdays) that move people to action to build social movements. You will also oversee policy implementation of community development projects selected in the participatory budgeting process.

SESP 200-0 Understanding Knowledge (1 Unit)   What does it mean to know something? What are the different types of knowledge and what distinguishes them from one another? What counts as fact vs. opinion vs. belief and so on; who gets to decide and under what conditions? How is knowledge produced and how does it gain traction? How does the source and type of knowledge interact with socio-political-cultural constructs and systems of power and, in turn, how can "knowledge" be used to produce and/or perpetuate power and privilege or to empower those who are marginalized? Finally, how does what we do in SESP and at Northwestern as both consumers and producers of knowledge fit within the landscape of these questions? In this course students will explore these and other questions to gain insight into the social production, distribution, consumption, interpretation, and operationalization of "knowledge." Using primarily seminar-style discussion, the first portion of the course focuses on building and analyzing theoretical frameworks and applied texts in order to generate a working understanding of "knowledge" in its myriad forms. Among our goals for the first portion of the course is to tie theoretical, academic, and "folk" knowledges to everyday experiences and the world around us writ large. The second portion of the class will involve a series of applied of cases studies, including welcoming members of the SESP faculty community to present on their research, which we will work to bring into conversation with our generated frameworks regarding the sources, types, and implications of knowledge.

SESP 201-0 Human Development: Childhood and Adolescence (1 Unit)   Personal, social, and cognitive development from birth through adolescence. Interplay of biological and experiential factors on linguistic and conceptual development, ego, and personality.

SESP 203-0 Human Development: Adulthood and Aging (1 Unit)   Psychological, sociological, and biological factors influencing socialization and development from young and middle adulthood through old age. Influences of family, school, and work on the individual.

SESP 204-0 Designing for Social Change (1 Unit)   A key goal of this course is to acquire an intellectual and applied understanding of the principles of program design and development, which include a sustained consideration of issues affecting the quality of program implementation. This course is best suited for FIRST AND SECOND YEAR students.

SESP 210-0 Introduction to Statistics and Research Methodology (1 Unit)   Definitions and classifications of terms used in quantitative methods; measures of typical and maximum performance, reliability, and validity checks; reporting and displaying data; interpreting results.

SESP 218-0 Leaders Lab (1 Unit)   Leaders Lab is an interactive, engaging and dynamic fall quarter course that was created and designed for incoming first and second-year students in SESP to reflect, experience and engage in dialogue about the "big" questions in life such as: who am I? What is my purpose in life? How can I be me? What are my responsibilities to the communities I'm a part of? Why do I serve? What is leadership? How can I lead? This course is associated with the SESP Leadership Institute. Only students enrolled in the leadership institute can register for this course.

SESP 251-0 Special Topics (1 Unit)   N/A.

SESP 260-0 Community Based Research Methodologies: Educational Justice (1 Unit)   This course examines the histories, ideas, practices, relations and possible futures that shape struggles for educational justice and human thriving. The course is unique in that it brings together an intergenerational group of thinkers and learners (high school students, undergraduate students, youth workers, graduate students, professors, high school teachers and community members) to engage in collaborative study, reflection and design.

SESP 272-0 Field Research Methods (1 Unit)   Guided practice in systematic and participant observation. Observer bias, field notes, unobtrusive measures.

SESP 291-1 Peer-Led Learning: Theory and Practice (0.25 Unit)   SESP 291 is the training program for students working as first-time mentors in the Peer Leaders program. It is taken over two academic quarters, with each quarter offering .25 credit (a total of .5 credit). You will receive a "K" grade for fall quarter, which means you are continuing in the course. After winter quarter, you will receive a letter grade which will be retroactively applied to fall quarter.

SESP 291-2 Peer-Led Learning: Theory and Practice (0.25 Unit)  

SESP 295-1 Leadership Studio I (1 Unit)   Learning organizing requires building a real organization. Students accepted to the certificate program will further develop their organizing skills by taking a leadership role on the executive board of Open Democracy Northwestern (undergraduate club). Leaders will develop strategy, train club members, manage operations. Leaders will receive weekly coaching from instructors. Course is only open to students who have completed the first year sequence of the certificate. Prerequisites: Prior to 2024-2025 students will need to have completed SESP 195-0 3 times to enroll. 2024-2025 and beyond, students will need to have completed SESP 195-1, 195-2, 195-3 to enroll.

SESP 295-2 Leadership Studio II (1 Unit)   Learning organizing requires building a real organization. Students accepted to the certificate program will further develop their organizing skills by taking a leadership role on the executive board of Open Democracy Northwestern (undergraduate club). Leaders will develop strategy, train club members, manage operations. Leaders will receive weekly coaching from instructors. Course is only open to student who have completed the first year sequence of the Civic Engagement Certificate. Prerequisites: Prior to 2024-2025 students will need to have completed SESP 195-0 3 times to enroll. 2024-2025 and beyond, students will need to have completed SESP 195-1, 195-2, 195-3 to enroll.

SESP 298-0 Student Organized Seminar (1 Unit)   Courses proposed by students and supervised by faculty sponsors on special topics approved by the SESP undergraduate education director. May be taken only once per quarter; pass/no credit only. Consultation with the SESP student affairs assistant dean advised.

SESP 299-1 Civic Engagement Capstone Research (1 Unit)   Independent study courses leading to completion of the Certificate in Civic Engagement capstone project.

SESP 299-2 Certificate in Civic Engagement- Capstone Project (1 Unit)   Independent study courses leading to completion of the Certificate in Civic Engagement capstone project.

SESP 310-0 Causal Methods for Evaluating Policy (1 Unit)   This course will provide students with a framework for understanding causal inference and a toolkit for making causal claims using quantitative data. Prerequisites: Students need to have taken SESP 210-0 or any 200-level STATS course.

SESP 320-0 Race and Education (1 Unit)   Conceptual underpinnings of the construct of race and how conceptions of race have influenced the course of education in the United States.

SESP 322-0 Crafting Child Policy (1 Unit)   This course is open to undergraduate students interested in the intersection of child development, social policy, and  applied  research. The course will guide students in how to apply psychological theory and rigorous research methods to the study of child and family policies in real-world settings. Working in groups, students will have the opportunity to answer pressing, current  questions posed by the Illinois  Governor’s Office of Early Childhood Education and Chicago’s Office of the Mayor. Group projects have the potential to help inform the structure and development of the state’s  innovative  policies for young children (birth to 8) and  their  families.

SESP 323-0 Trauma and Atrocity: Holocaust Memory, Memorial and Museums (1 Unit)   What is Holocaust memory? How has Holocaust memory changed over time, and how does the Holocaust continue to affect our understanding of trauma, atrocity, and human rights today? This seminar addresses individual memory, including survivor and witness testimony, memory and trauma, and the impact of the Holocaust on survivors' families and communities.

SESP 324-0 Pedagogies for History and Injustice: Holocaust Education Design (1 Unit)   N/A.

SESP 325-0 Race, Adolescence, and School Discipline (1 Unit)   In recent years, racial disparities in school discipline have attracted the attention of educators, policymakers, parents, and the general public. Why is it so hard for legal, political, and educational institutions to improve school discipline? How do intersections of race, gender, and social class matter for students' experiences of school discipline? Are there schools that are getting discipline right? What does that look like, and to what extent can other schools learn from their successes? In this course, we will learn about evidence-based policy improvements and imagine how to create schools where race does not predict discipline.

SESP 351-0 Special Topics (1 Unit)   Advanced work on special topics.

SESP 351-SA Special Topics (1 Unit)   Advanced work on special topics. This course is limited to students approved to study abroad through the Global Learning Office (GLO).

SESP 360-0 Magic Monsters & the Holocaust (1 Unit)   In this course, we'll explore public learning about the Holocaust through popular film and fiction. We'll question which historical narratives are being told and which are being ignored, and we'll ask why and how genres like fantasy, sci-fi, fairy tales, and time travel are commonly used to bring stories of mass-violence to the public.

SESP 381-0 BSED/BSJ Experiential Learning Community Workshop Series (0 Unit)   In their second year, students choose 1 experiential education requirement – either the SESP Practicum, Student Teaching, or Medill Journalism Residency for 4 units of credit. The students participate in the Community Workshop Series during the year they complete their experiential education requirement.

SESP 390-0 Research Apprenticeship (1 Unit)   Opportunity to participate in faculty research projects. Prerequisites: consent of the faculty member and the SESP assistant dean for student affairs; submission of completed Request for Independent Study/Special Courses Form at registration.

SESP 391-0 Advanced Research Design (1 Unit)   Overview of research methods that may be used to design and implement the honors thesis. Prerequisites: SESP 210-0 and SESP 272-0 recommended.

SESP 392-0 Experiential Learning: Practicum (4 Units)  

SESP 392-SA Experiential Learning: Practicum Study Abroad (4 Units)  

SESP 398-0 Senior Thesis Seminar (1-3 Units)   Students develop, design, implement, and evaluate a research project under a faculty advisor's guidance. Prerequisites: senior status, cumulative GPA by the end winter quarter of the junior year, recommendation for the honors program from SESP 391-0 instructor(s); consent of program director.

SESP 399-0 Independent Study (1 Unit)   Faculty-supervised study of special topics of the student's own choosing and not covered in regular courses. Prerequisites: consent of the supervising faculty member(s) and the SESP assistant dean for student affairs; submission of completed Request for Independent Study/Special Courses Form at registration.