Sociology of Global Human Rights

Developing course content that students can meaningfully apply in their everyday lives—and that can contribute to positive, material social change—has been a central goal of my teaching for several years. I am particularly interested in learning how to design social action components that move beyond abstract engagement and instead connect sociological analysis to concrete practices, community involvement, and collective action. The Institute on Teaching Social Action offers a structured and reflective space to deepen this work and to strengthen the bridge between sociological theory and pedagogy on one end, and real-world impact on the other.

This course introduces human rights through a sociological perspective. While human rights are studied across disciplines—including political science, philosophy, law, and public policy—this course asks what sociology uniquely contributes to our understanding of human rights. Sociologists examine the social conditions under which human rights legislation is drafted, interpreted, enforced, and violated, emphasizing how the international human rights regime is socially constructed and enacted.

The course explores the philosophical foundations of human rights doctrine, its historical development, its practical implementation, and its discursive flexibility. Drawing on contemporary news events and global case studies, students analyze how human rights discourse is realized—or fails to be realized—in lived social contexts around the world.

This course also functions as a writing-intensive class, structured partly as a writing workshop. Students produce multiple papers, engage in peer review, and revise their work based on feedback. The course format prioritizes discussion, debate, and argumentation; a central pedagogical goal is to foster rigorous intellectual exchange among students and between students and the instructor.

Ordoitz Galilea

Assistant Professor of Sociology

Sociology & Anthropology

Susquehanna University