Program Overview

PhD in Social Practice and Transformational Change

The PhD in Social Practice and Transformational Change program is designed to stimulate interdisciplinary examination and critical theorization of social practice and its relationship to policy, programs, and transformational change. This program bridges the gap between theory and practice, emphasizing community-engaged scholarship and collaboration.

Program Overview

In this program, students design and implement practice-based research projects and research-based practices, developing principled, ethical, and sustainable frameworks for collaborative, community-engaged initiatives. The program is grounded by six key pillars:

• Intersectional and Decolonizing Approaches and the 'Unsettling' Nature of Change
• Feminist, Gender, Sexuality, and Other Critical Perspectives for Rethinking Difference and the Human
• Indigenous Knowledge Systems
• Social Justice and Praxis Orientation
• Methodological Innovation and Boundary Crossing
• Community Engaged Scholarship

Individual Development Plan

This program is intentionally designed to be deeply learner-centered, allowing students to explore their interests throughout the program with the creation of their own Individual Development Plan (IDP). The IDP supports students in aligning personal and professional goals with academic expectations and responsibilities, offering built-in flexibility to adapt and direct their learning.

Community of Practice

A unique feature of this program is the active participation in a facilitated community of practice, conceptualized as a collaborative, dynamic, active learning group of students, faculty, and practitioners. This community creates space for informal gatherings, sharing, collaborative support, and building connections and learning across the program.

Program Courses and Schedule

The 4-year full-time program combines research-intensive classroom study with experiential and problem-based learning, preparing students for lifelong learning and future career success in private, public, and civil society sectors. Students must successfully complete three courses, the community of practice, a qualifying examination, and a thesis. The program courses include:

Social Practice and Transformational Change

Students engage with key theories of social practice, ethical community engagement, ways of knowing, reflexivity, and change processes, social praxis, and orientation, and the role of policy in social change, from inter- and transdisciplinary perspectives.

Research and Social Practice

Students build upon core concepts explored in Social Practice and Transformational Change, moving beyond analysis and discussion of scholarly contributions into engagement activities working with or as practitioners on externally identified questions and community needs.

Methodologies Lab

Students treat methodology as critical research design connected to epistemology and ontology, investigating what counts as knowledge, as data, and scholarship, the role of the researcher, issues of representation, and the implications of these for research.

Admission Requirements

• Successful completion of a course or thesis-based master's degree with a minimum grade average of at least 78% from an accredited university.
• Applicants who have not completed a master's degree but have considerable relevant professional experience outside the academy may be considered for direct entry into the doctoral program.

Graduate Student Funding

The University of Guelph is committed to providing a minimum stipend of $20,000 for all doctoral students. Students are guaranteed financial support through teaching assistantships, research assistantships, and/or scholarships.

Faculty and Research Areas

Expert faculty from all five departments in the College of Social and Applied Human Sciences and beyond are affiliated with the program as supervisors and instructors. Research areas include:

• Indigenous health and social well-being
• Indigenous masculinities
• Indigenous feminisms
• Critical community engaged scholarship
• Violence against women
• Social and criminal justice policy
• Critical psychology
• Equity education
• Gender and sexual development
• Women's health

About the College of Social and Applied Human Sciences

The college provides programming in a range of social science and applied human science disciplines and supports discipline-based and inter/multi-disciplinary researchers. It is home to various academic units, centers, and institutes, including the Arrell Food Institute, the Community Engaged Scholarship Institute, and the ReVision: The Centre for Art and Social Justice.