Race and Racism

Catalog description

Race and Racism will discuss the classical and contemporary understandings of the concepts of race and racism. We will begin by taking an historical approach, delving into processes of racialization and the first instances where distinctions in human race were noted. We will survey theories of race and use a social constructions approach to examine how sociologists approach the study of racial and ethnic group difference. We will examine how definitions of racial groups have evolved over time and differ across contexts, as well as some of the underlying social and structural processes that create racial hierarchies. At the end of the course students should have a strong understanding of the mechanisms that reproduce systems of racial classification. The course will also examine patterns and trends in racial and ethnic inequality over recent decades, centering our discussion on the legacies of racism, current discrimination, and new processes that are currently unfolding to reproduce inequality.While the course's main focus is to examine understandings of race and racism in the United States, we will devote some attention to how race and ethnicity emerge in different environments by examining race and racism in an international context. Offered as AFST 386 , SOCI 386 and SOCI 486 . Counts as a CAS Global & Cultural Diversity course. Counts as a Human Diversity & Commonality course. Prereq: SOCI 101 .