Social Justice Learning Community

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Movies About Technology and Social Justice:

• "Hidden Figures" (2:07:00) 2016, YouTube trailer. For more information see here. A great engineering movie! Staring Taraji P. Henson as Katherine Johnson, a mathematician who calculates flight trajectories for Project Mercury and other missions. It also features Octavia Spencer as NASA supervisor and mathematician Dorothy Vaughan and Janelle Monae as NASA engineer Mary Jackson (Kevin Costner, Kirsten Dunst, Jim Parsons, Glen Powell, and Mahershala Ali in supporting roles).

• NASA has a "Modern Figures" program here.
• Click here for a list of 30 social justice movies, here for a list of five movies, and here for a list of 15 movies.

Video/Courses on Social Justice:

1. Social Justice courses taught by Prof René Olate, in the College of Social Work.
2. If you search in YouTube, you will find a lot of content.
3. On-line courses: Search on "social justice" and you will find many, including ones at, for example, Coursera, and also university courses.

Technology, Games, and Social Justice: 

• See pp. 472-474, Problem 4.26, especially the story by OSU engineering student Andrew Fenner, in the Humanitarian Engineering book (free download).
• Question: Do fun and games have a role in technology for social justice?

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• Social Justice Theme Song:
  

• "Where is the love?" - The Black Eyed Peas, Elephunk album, 2003.

• YouTube video (4:12) with over 550 million views.
• Student-suggested, then chosen by vote in a classroom of OSU engineering students.
• Lyrics
• Question: For you, how well does this song fit with the identification of challenges in social justice?
• See pp. 472-474, Problem 4.26, especially the story by OSU engineering student Andrew Fenner, in the Humanitarian Engineering book (free download).
• Question: Do fun and games have a role in technology for social justice?

First-Generation College Students and Crossing Socioeconomic/Intellectural Boundaries:

• Movie: "Good Will Hunting" (2:06:00), 1997, starring Robin Williams, Matt Damon, Ben Affleck, Minnie Driver, and Stellan Skarsgard.
• Book: Alfred Lubrano, "Limbo: Blue Collar Roots, White Collar Dreams"

Podcasts: 

There are many on social justice topics uncovered via search.

Comedy and Social Justice:

You can google "comedy social justice" and find many approaches  (e.g., comedy to change hearts to support justice).

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Racial Inequality:

Based on social and economic advantages and disparities that affect races in the US which ccan be seen as resulting from historic oppression, inequality of inheritance, and prejudice, especially against minority groups.

Distributive Justice:

Concerned with inequalities based on the distributions of income, job opportunities, services, etc. that occur in the US and globally.

Impact of Inequality:

TED talk (16:18), Richard Wilkinson, "How economic inequality harms societies"

TED says: "We feel instinctively that societies with huge income gaps are somehow going wrong. Richard Wilkinson charts the hard data on economic inequality, and shows what gets worse when rich and poor are too far"

Human Rights:

The most recognized statement is the United Nations Universal Declaration on Human RIghts (UDHR), several of which are about in injustices of inequality along many dimensions, discrimination, shutting out participation, marginalization, education, health, etc.

Social Justice:

Additional subjects and perspectives are covered in Chapter 2 of this book that covers religious and secular perspectives on Social Justice.

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Diversity and Inclusion in the Workplace:

TED talk (10:56): Janet Stovall, "How to get serious about diversity and inclusion in the workplace"

TED says: "Janet Stovall shares a three-part action plan for creating workplaces where people feel safe and expected to be their unassimilated, authentic selves"

Questions: She says that only business can dimantle racism". Do you agree? Can we use our enginering skills to explore/support what he is saying (e.g., by working with the data she dicusses)?

OSU Office of Diversity and Inclusion, Values: 

• Inclusive Excellence
• Collaboration
• Social Justice and Equity
• Respect and Civility
• Leadership and Partnerships

Diversity in Engineering:

"We advance Inclusive Excellence by Advocating for campus diversity and inclusion, Promoting the understanding of diversity and inclusion, and Integrating its principles and practices into the fabric and culture of the college." From their web site:

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Intersectionality:

Definition (K. Crenshaw): “I would define intersectionality as, at least the way that I’ve seen it manifest on college campuses, and in a lot of the political left, as a hierarchy of victimhood in which people are considered members of a victim class by virtue of membership in a particular group, and at the intersection of various groups lies the ascent on the hierarchy.” (she coined the term)

TED talk (18:41), Kimberlé Crenshaw, "The urgency of intersectionality".

Interactions and Influence Diagrams:

There are many ways in which issues and solution approaches in Racism, Poverty, Mental Health, and Wellness influence each other. Interactions are found in intersectionality (above) but in interactions we are also concerned with environment, built environment, technologies, and culture/sociality. So, interactions include health disparities (in health care and actual mental or physical health), racism as a determinant of health, how poverty and mental health interact (e.g., in people who are homeless), between poverty and racism, technology for sustainable community development, etc. 

Examples of interactions between income, health, and knowledge/education are given in Section 1.6.1 in the Humanitarian Engineering book (Figure 1.4, p. 71, shown on the right).  More complex models (e.g., for social justice and democracy) are in Section 2.4, and Homework Problem 3.15 (p. 395). 

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Implicit Bias:

Defined here by the Kirwan Institute for the Study of Race and Ethnicity

Implicit Bias Education:

Implicit Bias Module Series, Kirwan Institute for the Study of Race and Ethnicity

Algorithmic Bias:

1. Documentary: "Coded Bias" (1:30:00), 2020.
2. TED talk (8:36): Joy Buolamwini, "How I'm fighting bias in algorithms" (how racial bias is sometimes put in code, and what she wants to do about it).
3. Salma Ghoneim, "5 Types of bias & how to eliminate them in your machine learning project"

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Download the papers below, and more, here.

Kevin M. Passino, Humanitarian Engineering: Advancing Technology for Sustainable Development, Edition 3, Bede Pub., Columbus, OH, 2016. Click here.

Luis Felipe Giraldo and Kevin M. Passino, “Dynamic Task Performance, Cohesion, and Communications in Human Groups,” IEEE Trans. on Cybernetics, Vol. 46, No. 10, pp. 2207-2219, 2016.

Luis Felipe Giraldo, Kevin M. Passino, and John D. Clapp, “Modeling and Analysis of Group Dynamics in Alcohol-Consumption Environments,” IEEE Transactions on Cybernetics, Vol. 47, No. 1, pp. 165-176, January 2017.

Luis Felipe Giraldo and Kevin M. Passino, “Dynamics of Cooperation in a Task Completion Social Dilemma,” PLOS ONE, Vol. 12, No. 1, Jan. 26, 2017.

Hugo Gonzalez Villasanti and Kevin M. Passino, “Feedback Controllers as Financial Advisors for Low-Income Individuals,” IEEE Trans. on Control Systems Technology, Vol. 25, No. 6, pp. 2194-2201, Nov. 2017.

Luis Felipe Giraldo, Kevin M. Passino, John D. Clapp, and Danielle Ruderman, “Dynamics of Metabolism and Decision Making During Alcohol Consumption: Modeling and Analysis,” IEEE Transactions on Cybernetics, To appear, 2017.

Clapp, J. D., Madden, D. R., Gonzalez Villasanti, H. J., Giraldo, L. F., Passino, K. M., Reed, M. B., & Fernandez Puentes, I., “A System Dynamics Model of Drinking Events: Multi-Level Ecological Approach,” Systems Research and Behavioral Science, Vol. 35, pp. 265-281, Jan. 2018.

Hugo Gonzalez Villasanti, Felipe Giraldo, Kevin M Passino, “Feedback Control Engineering for Cooperative Community Development,” IEEE Control Systems Magazine, pp. 87-101, June 2018.

Gonzalez Villasanti, H. J., Passino, K. M., Clapp, J. D., Madden, D. R., “A Control-Theoretic Assessment of Interventions During Drinking Events,” IEEE Trans. on Cybernetics, Vol. 49, No. 2, pp. 604-615, 2019.

Hugo Gonzalez Villasanti and Kevin M Passino, “Modeling and Analysis of Mood Dynamics in the Bipolar Spectrum,” IEEE Trans. Computational Social Systems, Vol. 7, No. 6, pp. 1335-1344, Dec. 2020.

Hugo Gonzalez Villasanti, Daniel Madden, John C Clapp, Kevin M Passino, “A Dynamic Multi-Level Ecological Approach to Drinking Event Modeling and Intervention,” Systems Research and Behavioral Science, To appear, 2021.

K.M Passino, “Teaching Professional and Ethical Aspects of Electrical Engineering to a Large Class,” IEEE Trans. on Education, Vol. 41, No. 4, pp. 273-281, Nov. 1998.

Andrews C., Passino K.M., Guest Editorial, “Social Implications of Systems Concepts,” IEEE Technology and Society Magazine, Special Issue on the Social Implications of Systems Concepts, Vol. 19, No. 4, p. 9, Winter 2000/2001.

K.M. Passino, “Educating the Humanitarian Engineer,” Journal of Science and Engineering Ethics, Vol. 15, pp. 577-600, Dec. 2009.

K.M. Passino, Guest Editor for Special Issue on Volunteerism and Humanitarian Engineering – Part I, IEEE Technology and Society Magazine, Dec. 2009.

Greg Bixler, Joseph Campbell, Roger Dzwonczyk, Howard Greene, John Merrill, and Kevin M. Passino, (listed alphabetically) “Humanitarian Engineering at The Ohio State University: Lessons Learned in Enriching Education While Helping People,” Int. Journal of Service-Learning in Engineering: Humanitarian Engineering and Social Entrepreneurship, pp. 78-96, Fall 2014.