We will examine conceptual and theoretical approaches to the sociological study of ethnic and racial conflict around the globe, looking at ethnicity and race as distinctive but overlapping social constructions of collective identity that underpin patterns of social conflict and systems of power and privilege. We will also explore the difference between race and ethnicity, the various ways in which racial, ethnic, and national identities are constructed in different countries, individual versus group approaches to the study of prejudice and discrimination, and the racialization of ethnic and religious groups. In analyzing the sources of ethnic and racial conflicts in different nation-states, we will examine the role played by racism, ethnocentrism, and xenophobia, situating particular cases of conflict in North America, Africa, Latin America, and Asia in the contexts of colonialism, slavery, globalization, democratization, nation-state formation, and transnational migration. Using a comparative and historical approach, we will also examine how different countries formulate immigration policies and address issues of immigrant incorporation, exclusion, and citizenship and the conditions under which conflicts turn violent, leading to ethnic cleansing and genocide. Finally, we will analyze different approaches to reducing ethnic and racial conflicts, from affirmative action and reparations to cosmopolitanism, federalism, and global governance.