AAS 3211W is also offered in Spring 2025
AAS 3211W is also offered in Fall 2024
AAS 3211W is also offered in Spring 2024
AAS 3211W is also offered in Fall 2023
AAS 3211W is also offered in Spring 2023
AAS 3211W is also offered in Fall 2022
AAS 3211W is also offered in Spring 2022
AAS 3211W is also offered in Fall 2021
Spring 2024 | AAS 3211W Section 001: Race & Racism in the U.S. (53548)
- Instructor(s)
- Class Component:
- Lecture
- Credits:
- 3 Credits
- Grading Basis:
- A-F or Audit
- Instructor Consent:
- No Special Consent Required
- Instruction Mode:
- In Person
- Class Attributes:
UMNTC Liberal Education Requirement
- Meets With:
SOC 3211W Section 001
- Times and Locations:
Regular Academic Session
Mon,
Wed 01:00PM - 02:15PM
UMTC, West Bank
Blegen Hall 155
- Enrollment Status:
Open (24 of 28 seats filled)
- Also Offered:
- Course Catalog Description:
- We live in a society steeped in racial understandings that are often invisible - some that are hard to see, and others that we work hard not to see. This course will focus on race relations in today's society with a historical overview of the experiences of various racial and ethnic groups in order to help explain their present-day social status. This course is designed to help students begin to develop their own informed perspectives on American racial "problems" by introducing them to the ways that sociologists deal with race, ethnicity, race relations and racism. We will expand our understanding of racial and ethnic dynamics by exploring the experiences of specific groups in the U.S. and how race/ethnicity intersects with sources of stratification such as class, nationality, and gender. The course will conclude by re-considering ideas about assimilation, pluralism, and multiculturalism. Throughout, our goal will be to consider race both as a source of identity and social differentiation as well as a system of privilege, power and inequality affecting everyone in the society albeit in different ways.
- Class Description:
- In mainstream American culture, race and racism both have a taken-for-granted nature. Race is a "natural" category a person belongs to as bestowed by their parents. Racism is deliberate bigotry or discrimination against certain racial groups perpetuated due to ignorance, selfishness, or other moral depravities.
Sociologists, however, conceptualize both race and racism differently. They understand race and racism to be social processes, things that must continually be accomplished and enforced by social agents who often are neither especially ignorant nor popularly considered to be morally compromised. Investigating how race and racism are accomplished, and how such processes are deeply embedded into the mundane features of American life, will be the goal of this class.
- Who Should Take This Class?:
Any students able to register for the class with an interest in understanding how race and racism function sociologically are welcome in the class
- Learning Objectives:
Students will work on the following skills:
1.) Learn how to read and analyze academic texts
2.) Learn how to collaborate and learn in non-lecture educational settings
3.) Learn how to take ownership of scholarly ideas and apply them to personal contexts of interest
4.) Learn how to develop and refine an original topic of the student's choosing in an academic paper.
- Grading:
- Students' grades will be based on a mixture of short answer/essay-based quizzes, participation and attendance in class sessions, and a series of assignments concerning the planning, drafting, and submission of a final term paper.
- Exam Format:
- There will be 2-3 quizzes in the course, each taken with some access to notes. The final exam will be a term paper.
- Class Format:
Class will be a mix of lecture and class discussion, with at least 50 percent of class time featuring class discussion.
- Workload:
Students should expect to dedicate 3-4 hours a week outside of class time doing academic readings and preparing class assignments.
- Textbooks:
- https://bookstores.umn.edu/course-lookup/53548/1243
- Instructor Supplied Information Last Updated:
- 9 November 2023
ClassInfo Links - Spring 2024 Asian American Studies Classes