Ethnic Studies

Ethnic Studies is designed to help students to develop a more complex and nuanced understanding of the human experience as it relates to ethnicity, including the factors that influence individual and collective identity. Early lessons in the course guide students to build a conceptual framework for studying ethnicity and ethnic groups, based on the relationships among identity, ethnicity, race, and nationality. Students will analyze how cultural assumptions and biases influence both individual identity and people’s perceptions of others, and learn about the origins of culture in early civilizations and the ways that humans organized themselves socially as populations increased will provide background knowledge that students need to study ethnicity in the United States. Later lessons introduce the histories and cultures of specific ethnic groups in the United States and help students understand how identity and experience are sometimes shaped by belonging to these groups. Students will then investigate factors that lead members of different ethnic groups to immigrate to the United States and consider how these groups and their cultures have shaped American society. Students will also analyze the power structures that impact the lived experiences of Americans in various ethnic groups, identifying patterns of oppression and resistance throughout each group’s history.