SOAN 180 - FS: First-Year Seminar in Sociology

Credits: 3

Fall 2017, SOAN 180-01:FS: Black + White=Gray: Health and Conceptions of Race (3). Prerequisite: First-year standing. First-year seminar. This seminar tackles the question of what is “race” and how it affects health. In the United States, “race” is a concept that people frequently take for granted. People tend to think of their racial identification as a stable aspect of their identities.  This is important given that one’s race impacts life outcomes-including one’s health. But what does  “race” actually signify? Does race denote something inherently biological, cultural , or structural about one’s ancestry, background, or lifestyle?  Is race truly a stable “ascribed” characteristic that has predictive implications for peoples’ everyday well-being? In this course, we examine how people think about what race is, and how societal conceptions of race affect people’s health, through health policy, health outcomes, access to healthcare, and relationship to the medical establishment. (SS4) Chin