Applications for the MA in Social Justice Studies are now open, for a September 2,  2025 start.  Review of applications for Fall 2025 will commence February 1, 2025, but the registration portal will remain open until the end of April.

Only completed applications will be reviewed (application questions answered, transcripts uploaded, 2 letters of recommendation submitted, IELTs score or DuoLingo score if relevant). If referees have trouble accessing the application portal, letters can be sent to Elaine Doiron with the "Reference Letter Submission" as the subject name of the email. If students have any challenges with the application portal or questions, please also contact Elaine Doiron. Please contact Program Advisor, Kevin Brooks, in order to discuss the program before applying. The Program Handbook provides the most complete overview of the SJS program.  Applications are completed on the Faculty of Graduate Studies page. 

Have you ever wondered "What can I do to make a difference in my community or region? How can I combine my academic interests with social activism?" The Social Justice Studies (SJS) program at Lakehead university is designed to help you answer both of those questions. 

Located within the territories of the Anishinaabe peoples, Lakehead University's MA in Social Justice Studies (SJS) is an interdisciplinary graduate program housed in the Faculty of Social Sciences and Humanities.  SJS  delivers a transformative education by asking students to think critically about the values, cultural assumptions, and actions that maintain the current economic, political, and social structures which shape our day-to-day lives. Our program empowers students with the practical skills and theoretical knowledge necessary to challenge the informal and formal configurations of power and oppression within local, national, and global contexts.

The Social Justice Studies program offers several paths that allow students to tailor their education to best to fit their scholarly and activist interests. There are four streams that students can pursue during the two-year degree: coursework, research project, creative project, or practicum. These four options ensure that students will be the engineers of their own learning. Connecting scholarly inquiry and community-based learning provides students with practical experience and an opportunity to develop necessary critical skills through an intersectional approach to social justice.

The flexibility of the program allows students to take courses with and be supervised by dynamic faculty from across the Social Sciences and Humanities. Our faculty come from a broad range of disciplinary specialties (including, but not limited to, Indigenous Learning, Women’s Studies, Music, Visual Arts, and English), are committed to positive political, social, and economic change, participate in community-based research, and are dedicated to fostering an environment of political engagement with those issues relevant to social justice.