Language, Culture & Community: Study abroad in Mexico

Catalog description

This course will explore culture, language and other social identities as they play out in our lives and communities in the United States and Mexico. The course is the first part of the Maymester in Mexico program and will include orientation and academic preparation to support interaction with Mexican students, families and communities during the study abroad experience in Mexico. Our goal in the course is to better understand our linguistic, cultural and social identities, the nature of language and intercultural learning and help us to investigate social issues that are global in scope and directly influence life in both the United States and Mexico. Themes around which the course will be organized are: 1) culture, language, and racial identities; 2) sustainable communities and global futures; 3) multilingualism, migration & translanguaging practices; 4) empowerment, social movements and community advocacy; 5) indigenous knowledges & decolonial thinking. We will explore these themes with examples from Mexico and the United States and provide a foundation upon which you can build ethnographic research skills to end in a final investigative project. The course will ask students to interrogate their beliefs about culture, language, and multilingualism as we work towards de-centering whiteness and English language supremacy. We will expand perspectives on sustainability in order to move toward a viable natural and culturally sustaining world. Ongoing dialogue and reflection, at times with Mexican university students will be integrated into the course in a virtual format in order to begin development of intercultural competencies and community advocacy skills. This course is a prerequisite and an introduction to a study abroad experience and a second course, Maymester in Mexico, offered during a faculty-led study abroad experience in Mexico. Before enrolling in this course, students must apply to the Maymester in Mexico study abroad program.