The Walls to Bridges course will be held in French from May 12 to June 19, 2025, on Monday and Thursday from 8 a.m. to 11 a.m. It will take place at the Hull Detention Centre, 75 rue Saint-François, Gatineau, QC.
This 6 credit course, based on the ‘Walls-to-Bridges Program’ model, is an opportunity for a small group of students from the University of Ottawa (up to a maximum of 10) and a detention centre (up to a maximum of 10) to study together as peers in a seminar style course. Classes will be held inside a detention centre and the instructor will act as facilitator to guide discussion about the various topics and as resources to share relevant information where appropriate.
The class will be seminar style with large and small group discussion, in class group activities, a group project, personal written reflections (journaling), and a final paper as the primary methods of learning and evaluation. The instructor will act as facilitator to guide discussion about the various topics, and as resource to share relevant information where appropriate.
The spring 2025 semester course is offered in French only and explores the subject of representations of justice and equality in popular culture. Students will learn through in class activities, readings, group discussions, journaling and other writing assignments, and individual and group assignments based on academic and non-academic (songs, comics, movies…) materials. Students will be encouraged to examine local, national and international cases/topics and to discuss the way justice is imagined, portrayed and valued in popular culture. There will be a special focus on the differential accesses to justice(s) in relation to race, gender, class and poverty. Students will be asked to consider how we (individually and collectively) actively engage in othering, how it works, as well as what we are trying to protect/defend by othering. Discussion of how we can resist othering will also be encouraged. It is only through open and honest discussion that we can start to unpack the othering process and how we mobilize our own privilege (consciously or not) to cast certain groups as different, dangerous or other.
This course, as part of Walls to Bridges-Compas Program, has been made possible with the assistance of the Ministère de la Sécurité Publique du Québec.