Martha Rabbani: Promoting Social Justice through School Club

University of Kansas Professor Martha Rabbani incorporates her research on peace and non-violence education, global democracy and world citizenship into social justice club for children and teens.

Martha Rabbani serves food to refugees during a KC for Refugees event. (Original photo: Serena S.Y. Hsu | Flatlandkc.org)

Martha Jalali Rabbani, a KU Peace and Conflicts lecturer from Brazil, has spent her academic and professional career studying peace and non-violence education, global democracy and world citizenship. Rabbani primarily focuses on social justice in the age of globalization. She is particularly interested in challenging the dominant narratives in today’s society that that hinder social justice by stereotyping or excluding different social groups.

She has written several academic articles that extensively examine the ways in which true social justice can be achieved, which, to her, requires a common level of equality and solidarity among all humans.

Rabbani has taught a number of classes in the Humanities department at KU including Education for Peace and Non-Violence. The primary aim of the course is to create a lesson plan using concepts from peace education research. Such concepts include dialogue, multiculturalism, and, of course, solidarity.

One way that Rabbani put her research into practice has been starting a Social Justice Club for sixth-grade students at Pembroke Hill Middle School. The club originated in 2013. Since then, the club has grown to include elementary and high school students.

Rabbani was inspired to begin the club after she read an article by a school teacher who had started a similar group at his school. She proposed the idea to a group of fellow Pembroke Hill parents; soon after, a cohort of nine parents embarked on the project. After six months of working together, the group developed the first set of lesson plans for the sixth-graders. 

For the first three years, the middle school students met at Rabbani’s house every other week. Once the students graduated to high school, they started meeting during school hours as a regular school club, sponsored by three high school teachers. 

Currently, there are between 10-15 students in each club. Rabbani continues to host the meetings of the middle-school students at her home, and now the high school students are the ones who design and teach weekly social justice lessons to the younger club members.

Meetings are bi-weekly and last 90 minutes. The general format of the sessions is: social time, introduction of the topic of the day, a short video, large group discussion, small group discussion, then coming together to decide on practical steps that can be taken to address the issue discussed.

The format of the meetings was carefully designed based on Rabbani’s research on pedagogy and peace education methodologies.

“My research and interest has been incorporated in every step of the club,” Rabbani said.

According their website, the primary goal of the club is:

“To nurture the youth's capacities in the path of building a more just society by thinking and experiencing how each person's best is achieved in the context of cooperation and caring for one another.”

The activities of the club depend on the grade-level of the students; however, members typically participate in activities like fundraising for local shelters, tutoring at community centers, creating social justice campaigns, and, teaming up with non-profit organizations in the Kansas City area.

For example, each year, the group coordinates an event with KC for Refugees, an organization that helps refugees during the assimilation process. Members of the club have a bake sale to raise money for the event, bring “goodie bags” for the refugee children, and organize a clothing drive for the families.

However, the main purpose of the event is for the members of the Social Justice Club and the refugee children to share stories and to learn about each other’s personal experiences in order to find common ground and extend solidarity to one another.

Rabbani mentioned how the club has been beneficial to the children and their parents:

“The parents who are actively involved in facilitating the program have constantly mentioned that they are better human beings for it,” Rabbani said.

Rabbani’s favorite part of the club is seeing the youth grow, and seeing the students and their parents learn to understand the “oneness of humanity”.

“The club has offered them a platform for social cooperation and mutual help, beyond socio-economic lines,” Rabbani said. “They take pride in advocating for justice and acting in a way that is caring and inclusive of others.”

Overall, the club has helped provide students with a framework that they can use to better the world in the future.

“If human beings can understand themselves as members of one human race, respect this membership, and act in an inclusive way, then human unification will be possible,” Rabbani said.