Sustainability

SOC 119N Race, Ethnicity and Culture (3 or 4 credits) (GS/GH;US/IL)(BA) Additionally, SOC 119N is an Inter Domain course (Social Sciences and Humanities) This course focuses on historical patterns and current status of racial, ethnic and cultural groups and issues locally, nationally, and internationally. SOC 119 has three objectives. First, the course will introduce students to new ways of thinking about race, ethnicity and culture from the perspectives of the social sciences and humanities. Students will be able to compare and contrast differences between race, ethnicity and culture. They will be able to understand the extent and pervasiveness of racial, ethnic and cultural inequality and discrimination in the U.S. and explain how unequal systems impact different ancestry groups both in the U.S. and around the world. Students will be able to compare historical causes and consequences of sociological processes such as immigration, assimilation and multiculturalism, and they will develop new ways of understanding how these processes are expressed in popular culture (e.g., art, music, literature) and intergroup dynamics. The second objective is to provide students with the intellectual tools for having more thoughtful conversations about the issues address in the class. By acquiring these tools Students will be able to formulate more thoughtful questions and responses when they engage others in everyday discussions about the many racial, ethnic and cultural factors and forces that pull people and groups together and push them apart. The third objective is to encourage students to explore their own racial and cultural identity. Students will explore pathways to allow them to discover new ways to understand their own racial and ethnic place in the world and the history of their own families. Students will be able to more clearly explain how their identity reflects and shapes their life experiences as well as others in their racial and ethnic group(s).