SOC 250 Race and Ethnicity in American Society

This course provides a basic sociological understanding of relations among racial and ethnic groups in the United States. A sociological approach includes considering race and ethnicity as social constructs that permeate all social life are entrenched in social structures and institutions and shift and mutate over time and place. Such a perspective suggests that (1) race and racism are not merely the 'problems' of/for subordinate racial and ethnic groups but are reflective of society-wide power relationships that deeply affect all of us on a daily basis (2) that racial and ethnic categories - including 'white' - can be viewed usefully as the result of historical struggles over economic resources political access and cultural identity rather than as objective measures of biological difference and (3) the institutional forms of racism indelibly etched into this nation's past did not end with civil rights legislation of the 1960s but continue to shape social institutions today.