Phone: (661) 654-2191 santos_class@csub.edu |
Teaching Assistance: Ms. Eva Rafik |
Course
Contents
This course is designed to provide students capable of operating as independent learners in an online-only environment with a broad, yet solid, introduction to the field of race & ethnic relations in the United States. The historical and contemporary experiences of various ethnic and panethnic groups in the United States -- the so-called European Americans, Native Americans, African Americans, Latinos/Hispanics, and Asian Americans -- are sociologically analyzed in the Healey textbook. Various sociological concepts are introduced and defined to explain the origins and history of the interactions between these groups, from colonial times to the present. In short, we attempt to learn and understand -- mediated by sociological theory -- the history and dynamics of modern peoplehoods in the United States. The Healey book does so with various degrees of success, which is fine: there has been and currently is no consensus for anything resembling a universal theory of modern peoplehood; there is not even agreement over the nature and historical record of racial and ethnic relations in specific countries, such as the United States -- much less on the history of peoplehood in all its forms, everywhere in the modern world-system. So the field is still, and will remain so for the foreseeable future, one of the most contested terrains of social science, public policy, and political discourse in most countries. But the Healey textbook, the main foundation of this online course, is an excellent way to introduce, in some depth, the broad historical sociology of race and ethnicity in one such country, the United States.
The emphasis of this course will then be placed on how race, ethnicity, & nationhood were and are socially (re)constructed in the U.S., and how these categories relate to various social structural processes such as free and forced prior and present migrations, colonial incorporation and modern imperialism, class stratification and social struggle, the role of the state, the patterns of sociocultural dynamics in peoplehood, and the role of gender relations. We seek to elucidate the contexts in which the modern social categories of peoplehood originated and how they have evolved, how they were affected by -- and in turn affected -- the broader political, economic, and cultural processes of U.S. history.
Contemporary issues in race, ethnicity,
gender, and class are explored in a broader international field through
fifteen chapters in the second book, the CQ Researcher anthology.
Students will be given the choice to select ten such topics to assess
critically, applying the conceptual framework developed in the Healey
textbook and other sociological theory the students may already possess.
* NOTE: The course's
learning objectives, as far as they are addressed in the main
(Healey) textbook, may be found by clicking the link to the "Healey Chapter Outlines and Learning
Objectives" folder in the course's Blackboard account.
Course
Structure
Self-learning, Pacing, and Assigned Activities Deadlines:
This six-week online course is designed for the mature, independent
learner; one
already well acquainted with and capable of using with ease the
internet, email, CSUB's Blackboard 9, and who already possess - or has
easy access to - a good computer well connected to all of these things.
It presupposes the
enrolled students are seriously willing and able to trade the time they would
have otherwise spent
in the classroom doing instead extensive
reading, testing, and writing
activities on their own. Students
should
plan for and reserve on their calendars at least a couple of hours a
day for this course during the six
weeks it lasts. The course is entirely web based and
requires
no physical attendance to any meeting, class, or scheduled testing
site. Each student is allowed to work at his or her own pace, pretty
much on
his or her own, but there are serious weekly deadlines for
all assignments
(posted at the end of this syllabus).
I. Activities Based on the Healey Textbook:
Other Instructions
on Taking Healey Chapter Tests at CSUB's Blackboard:
Again, if you need help: Contact the Student Technology Help Desk for Blackboard-related question in the library at (661) 654-2315; or, for computer-related questions, contact the Student Help Desk at (661) 654-2307. Or simply go to the E-Learning Services at the lower level of the campus library, accessible through the East entrance door (by the pond) during regular Summer office hours: 8:00 am to 5:00 pm, Monday through Thursday. No help available on Friday, Saturday, or Sunday. Be
prepared!
The maximum duration for each chapter test is 60 minutes. After
each weekly deadline, access to any given chapter test will be closed
and no late testing will be possible. So make sure you have prepared
well, chosen a day, time & place well, and have ample time and
tranquility (with no
distractions) to begin testing; take time to read carefully
each question before you answer it - do not rush! (a common
mistake). You may take the test with the open book, but exclusively on
your own, please. Never plan to take a test in two or more
sittings; plan always to take
each test in a single session
(the computer usually freezes incomplete tests). Save your answers every time. If you change your mind on a specific answer, don't forget to save it again! And don't forget to send your quiz/test to grade when you are done (lots of students forget this last step and their scores are not computed!). Security precaution: If you are using a public computer always quit both the Blackboard site and the browser after you are done with testing -- otherwise, someone may access your own Blackboard account and "try out" some tests! This is because your access codes stay active until you quit the browser. And remember, never share your testing access codes with anyone! Cheating Warning: Students are hereby formally forewarned that anybody caught cheating on the tests will automatically fail the course. Blackboard has a monitoring capability that automatically "flags" for instructors a variety of potential cheating cases and situations -- including comparing student answers, times of testing, etc. |
Plagiarism:
The ten Healey Chapter Tests taken together are worth up to 60
percent (6
points per test) of the final grade. The ten Healey Chapter Debate
Reports are worth up to 10 percent of the final grade (1 point
per report). The ten CQ Researcher Reading Assessments are
worth up to 30
percent (3 points per quiz). All this adds up to 100 points. The final
letter grade will
be assigned, on a scale of 0 to 100
points as
follows:
94-105 = A | 87-89 = B+ | 77-79 = C+ | 65-69 = D |
90-93 = A- | 84-86 = B | 74-76 = C | < 65 = F |
80-83 = B- | 70-73 = C | |
Email Communication with Dr. Santos &
Ms. Eva Rafik:
Students may communicate with Dr. Santos and Ms. Eva Rafik via email
to the class email address
above. Ms. Rafik may also be reached privately at her own
email
address
above. Both email addresses are also posted at the Blackboard course
site.
Please be advised, though, that email communication has to be very
brief and
to the point. Always sign off with your FULL NAME, do not assume
we know who you are! As Dr. Santos may be traveling in July, telephone
communications with him at the phone number
above is not reliable, but you can leave
messages there during the rest of June and he may reply. But if you
send an email
message
to Ms. Rafik requesting to talk to her, and give her a phone number
where she can reach you, she may call you back.
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1
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2
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4 |
3
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2 & 14 |
4
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5
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5 & 6 |
6
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9 & 10 |