Ever wonder how and why race has been and continues to be conceptualized as an idea, identity, ideology, skin color, biological distinction, demographic characteristic, status-based characteristic, social construction, hierarchical classification system, structure, political project, and others?

SOCI 2033-001 Social Problems, to be offered during the May intersession, will probe definitions of race and racism and consider the multitude and divergent ways that sociologists challenge and conceptualize some of these notions.

This course will consider theories of race and racial stratification and explore their potential transformations over time. The course will also cover historical and contemporary forms of racial progress and racist progress in the United States at both macro and micro-levels of analysis. Finally, the course will consider how spaces become imbued with racial meaning, whether and how racial boundaries become rigid or malleable, and how racial domination operates as an organizing feature of U.S. society.

This special section of the course is offered through the Department of Sociology and Criminology.