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PSY 480: CONTEMPORARY RACISM Instructor: Connie Wolfe, Ph.D. Note: All assignment and reading due dates are posted on the class web page. Check often for revisions, announcements, etc. |
COURSE DESCRIPTION & GOALS
This course is an in-depth examination of the new and more subtle types of racism present in American society. We will explore the manifestations and consequences of contemporary racism, and the challenges inherent in reducing this form of racism. The course will focus on anti-Black racism felt and expressed by Whites; however, I think the perspectives and theories we will learn could translate to other targets of racism and forms of prejudice. The most important goal I have in this class is for all of us, myself included, to build our knowledge base and, thus, become more effective agents against racism.
My choice to use the word "racism" in the course title, instead of sticking with some combination of more common keywords (prejudice, stereotypes, discrimination and intergroup relations), was very deliberate. The discipline of social psychology has primarily focused on the affective (prejudice), cognitive (stereotyping) and behavioral (discrimination) aspects of racism. The role of systemic oppression in individual racism has received scant attention from social psychology. Though the intricate details of prejudice and stereotyping are fascinating, I wanted to follow what is, for social psychology, a newer approach. Adams et al. (2005) have called this new approach a sociocultural psychology of racism and oppression. Their perspective focuses not just on prejudice as a function of the individual actor, but also as a function of the micro and macro sociocultural milieus the individual is operating within. As a result, we will be studying both direct (if subtle and unconscious) acts of prejudicial treatment, but also indirect consequences of systemic oppression. That said, it is important to note that the focus will be on individuals' experiences with systemic oppression rather than the social systems themselves. Although most of the course looks at racism through the lens of the perpetrator, we will also examine the topic from the target's perspective.
This course will directly develop the following skills, as described in the Psychology Department's mission statement. A full copy of the mission statement is available at the departmental web site
Critical thinking:
Communication & Interpersonal Skills:
REQUIRED READINGS
All required readings will be uploaded to Blackboard, linked to the Course Schedule, or placed on reserve at the library.
CLASSROOM DISCUSSIONS & INTERACTIONS
Racism is a stunningly complex topic which can be controversial and difficult to meaningfully discuss. My own understanding of the subject is continually evolving. One thing I have learned is how important it is to approach the subject matter with the following mindsets:
It is essential that our classroom be a place where everyone feels safe enough to express their thoughts without fear of unduly critical or judgmental responses. By remaining in this class, you are agreeing to be respectful of the widely varied experiences and backgrounds presented by classroom members. You may expect the same level of respect from me. Within that non-judgmental context, I very much hope that none of us will silence ourselves (in class or on assignments), because we are afraid of offending someone or otherwise saying something "wrong." Although that may be a reasonable concern/strategy elsewhere, in this class being inauthentic deprives us and others of a potential learning opportunity (either from our comments directly or from the responses of others). Similarly, if someone (including me) says something that you find offensive, try your best to find a way to express how you feel. Both sensitivity and insensitivity can be occasions for insight, and, in a class like this, they're sometimes a necessary part of the learning process.
Discomfort and Emotional Reactions
I do want our classroom to feel "safe," but that doesn't mean we will always feel "comfortable." We are likely to have emotional reactions to the topics we cover throughout the course. Indeed, much of the research we will read talks about just those types of feelings. I hope we experience positive emotional reactions like hope, revelation, and compassion. But we may also feel anger, sadness or remorse, despair, fear or withdrawal. It is important to acknowledge one's emotions and to study them - use them as a signal that there is something particularly important about what was just said or read. Did the point threaten a belief or underlying assumption? Did it rub salt in a wound? Did it make you feel demeaned or disrespected? Did it make you feel guilty or helpless? These reactions are very valuable aspects of the course, but they often go unexpressed or acknowledged because of fear of conflict, chaos or embarrassment. My own typical reaction to such emotions is to "intellectualize." To intellectualize is to (implicitly) deny the relevance of feelings by focusing on, or claiming the primacy of, content.
In an effort to help all of us, me included, make good use of our emotions, I found two ideas that may help.
1. Mindful Listening: Listening is an important skill. In particular, I'd like to encourage "mindful" listening. Basically, mindful listening means that you should try to:
- Focus on the other person. It is a common habit to formulate a response to a comment in parallel (simultaneously) with hearing it. That isn't listening. Try to focus all your attention on what is being said.
- Have the goal of understanding, not evaluating. This is similar to the above, and will help you listen. I'll be trying hard to break my habit of combining these two activities into one.
- Paraphrase what has been said before responding.
- Engage in gentle inquiry. Ask questions that will allow you to put yourself in the commenter's shoes, take their perspective.
- Notice your own reactions: physical reactions (e.g., muscle tension or relaxation), internal dialogues, and external behavior (e.g., averting your gaze, crossing your arms, or leaning forward in your seat).
Even skilled listeners have to work hard to remember all these steps. Let's help each other.
2. Feelings versus Inferences: Realize the distinction between a feeling and an attribution for the feeling. For example, "I feel uncomfortable" and "You are making me uncomfortable" have very different meanings. Let's try to focus on feelings first and then, deliberately, think together about inferences and attributions for those feelings.
This course has not been designed as a group therapy experience, nor am I qualified to provide psychological counseling. So, if the course touches on or uncovers particularly upsetting or personal feelings, you may want to contact one of the counselors on campus by calling 484-664-3178. If they do not have counseling resources that are right for you, they can help you find the appropriate resources.
PRE-REQUISITES
Course Pre-requisites: Social or Multicultural Psychology (or permission of the instructor).
Students who have taken social psychology will bring to our class a practiced ability to engage in situational or contextual analysis, rather than focusing on individualistic, or "bad person," attributions for racism. Students who have taken multicultural psychology will bring to our class a practiced ability to integrate identity (e.g., White identity) and intersecting identities into the study of racism. I have allowed students without either prerequisite to enroll in the course if they have commensurate academic experience thinking about racism and multicultural issues. Together, I think this mixture will be a very useful backdrop to our class discussions.
Although these are the only pre-requisites for the course, I do have certain expectations given that this is a 400-level course. For example, you should understand that this is a heavy reading class, and be able to create your own plan to mange those readings. I also am anticipating that you will have a fairly good handle on several important skills. These skills include:
ASSIGNMENTS & GRADING
10% Class Facilitator
25% Analysis Journal
15% Course Engagement
50% Racism Reduction Project
Class Facilitator (10%)
Each student will help me facilitate discussion in one class throughout the semester. To prepare for this role, you will do an especially close reading of all of the material assigned for that day, and a written summary of one of the assigned articles or book chapters. As a co-facilitator, you will be expected to:
You and I will briefly touch base prior to your facilitation day in order to review our goals for the day and answer any questions you might have.
This assignment will be graded in two parts. You can earn up to 20 points for your facilitation of discussion, depending upon your apparent preparation, your engagement, and the quality of your discussion questions (which should be written out and turned in to me).
The chapter or article summary can earn up to 10 points, depending on the accuracy, organization, clarity and, especially, the relevance of the summarized material. Rudimentary summaries regurgitate, in shorter form, everything the original source contains. You should aim for a more sophisticated summary in which you highlight information especially relevant to previous readings, the on-going structure of the course, our class discussion, and points you would like to make. Don't feel tied to the original source's organization or emphasis. Your job is to create a summary specifically useful to our class. You must write in narrative form (rather than outlines). As if this wasn't challenging enough, you also have to avoid inappropriate paraphrasing (it is typically just fine to repeat names of theories, models or frequently used "jargon"). Also, your summary is designed to be a reading or study guide, not a substitute for actually reading the reference (that is why your summary will be posted after the day of the discussion). Make decisions about the level of detail you include accordingly. Please note, as with everything you turn in, you must strive for clarity in your writing, proper grammar and roughly appropriate APA style.
Analysis Journal (25%)
Goals: Please treat these writing assignments not as "homework" but as "lifework." Be bold! Be daring! Make your intellectual work count for something! You are aiming to notice, observe and reflect on your own life and social world from the standpoint of the new information you are learning. The word "journal" in the assignment name signifies my interest in your personal reactions to the subject matter. What is surprising or challenging to you? Do you see examples or applications in your own thoughts or behaviors, or those of close others? The word "analysis" signifies my interest in your intellectual exploration of your personal reactions. That is, I want to know your opinions and feelings, but I also want you to push yourself to really examine those reactions from the perspective of the material we are learning. My general goals is to encourage you to spend time outside of class thinking about racism and the course readings, and to connect you to the issues on a more integrated and/or personal level.
You will write 12 journal entries, approximately one per week. For some of the entries I will ask you to write on a particular topic, for others you may choose your topic (see the class web page for details). The 10 essays with the highest scores will be counted toward your grade for this portion of the course. Submit your essays via Blackboard (see the folder under "Course Documents" and follow the instructions there). Typically, entries are due Sundays at midnight. If you turn in an entry after Sunday at midnight, it will be counted toward the following week (thus, you will receive no credit for the week prior). The point here is for you to be writing and journaling on a regular basis. I will not accept entries that are not posted on Blackboard (unless there is a system-wide problem).
Content: Please give each entry a meaningful title. I anticipate that, in most cases, each essay will be 2-4 pages (double-spaced). Strive for clarity in your writing, proper grammar and roughly appropriate APA style. But, you can as if you were speaking rather than adopting an overly academic style. The use of "I" and personal observations are welcomed (indeed, sometimes required). You do need to proof-read and spell-check. Importantly, I'd recommend you revise your own work with a fresh eye a few times before declaring it "finished." Have you produced a coherent narrative in which the paragraphs are related to a central idea and build upon one another? Each entry should begin with a central observation, event, interaction or insight. Carefully describe your central observation, and then provide analysis, interpretation and/or elaboration (e.g., What caught your attention? What are your cognitive and affective reactions to it? How does it relate to something you've learned in the course?). Your goal here is to move beyond mere description and offer your own unique perspectives and psychological analysis. As many entries as possible should come from your own experiences in class, at work, with family or friends, or somewhere else. You may also reflect and elaborate upon class discussions, real-world events, or class readings. Be sure to dive right into your central topic, and be sure your essay has a "point" (a.k.a. a thesis, or take-home message). Whatever the topic, don't raise key questions and simply move on. Instead, try to answer them as best you can by drawing on what we are learning and the new perspectives, beliefs and attitudes you are encountering. If your answers are only tentative, partial or speculative, you can qualify them as such - but at least leave the reader knowing what you think.
Confidentiality: I will consider everything in all of the essays confidential and will not share any of the specific content. Unless you explicitly ask me not to, however, I may refer to the content in anonymous, aggregated and/or very general terms when speaking with others about the course or diversity issues at Muhlenberg. Sometimes students express ideas, thoughts, and feelings in their journals that, for one reason or another, they do not express in class. This is one of the reasons that I have you do them. Some entries will, however, be so powerful and thought-provoking that I'll wish the rest of the class could read or hear them. Thus, I may ask you if you are comfortable sharing your insight during class time or on the BB Discussion Board. If you are not comfortable doing so, don't hesitate to tell me that - no explanations required.
Grading: The attitudes, beliefs, assertions, questions or answers of your entries (that is, the specifics of what you say) will not be evaluated at any point. Instead, the "grading" of the essays will be based on the depth of reflection, integration/synthesis of our course materials, and on whether or not the entry is consistent with the spirit of the assignment (i.e., to be thoughtful, reflective, integrative and challenging). Entries which refer to class material and/or integrate one or more ideas are likely to receive higher scores than entries which are superficial and do not attempt to wrestle with the difficult connections or complexities.
Each entry will be evaluated using the following 5-point rubric (thus, a total of 50 points can be earned):
Points and, sometimes, feedback will be posted in Blackboard. Click on "My Grades" to access this information. Please note that I will not necessarily provide you with any kind of formal feedback, other than points - which will be posted via Blackboard's gradebook feature. However, time-permitting, I will sometimes comment on the content of your entries. If you would like me to comment (or not comment!) on something in particular, please insert a parenthetical note into the entry, or if you prefer, come talk with me informally about what you're journaling about; I consider such conversations important.
It is vital to the success of this class that you are engaged. Being "engaged" means that you are interacting meaningfully with the course material both during class time, but also outside of class. For example, an engaged student will spend time outside of class carefully reading the assigned material, taking notes, thinking about the broader implications of the material, and considering intersections between our topics and other classes or life in general. You can earn up to 45 points for course engagement, and it will be evaluated in three parts:
Questions for Student Facilitators (12 points): Of course, I'd like for you to come to class with questions or comments every day. But, a more formal assignment is to produce two questions for each student-facilitated artice or chapter. You must type these questions and post them on the BB Discussion Board (in the appropriate thread) no later than 5pm the day before the class meeting. You should also bring a copy of the questions to class with you. You will be given 1 point of credit for turning in two, substantively different, questions. You can earn up to 12 points. Late questions will not be granted credit.
Discussion Board Participation (8 points): You must post to the class Discussion Board (on BB) 8 times during the semester (not counting the questions for student facilitators). Four of the posts must be new threads to start or deepen discussion, and four must be responses to someone else's question. You cannot double-count posts which include responses and new questions. You will get 1 point for each post. Any content in the post is fine, but I do reserve the right to deny you the 1 point for B.S. or otherwise non-productive contributions (e.g., "I agree." or "Did you see this YouTube video?" [with no additional information or questions]). *Please note: this is something new I'm trying for the first time. I welcome your comments and suggestions. Please be aware that I may also fold these 10 points into the more general "class participation" category below if things don't work out well.
Class Participation (25 points): Of course, being engaged in general will directly impact the quality of all of your work in the class. I would, however, like to set aside a portion of your final grade to encourage specific forms of participation. For example, I'd like for you to participate in class discussions. I will also consider our informal conversations as participation. In sum, your participation will be graded based on my subjective evaluation. I work very hard to be fair when assigning participation grades. If you have concerns, feel free to talk with me. Everyone will begin with 25 points. Deductions will be made for patterns of nonparticipation behavior.
Racism Reduction Project (50%)
For this ambitious project, you will have the assistance and support of a group of your fellow classmates. For the project, your group will choose particular example of what you see as on-going racism, analyze the nature and extent of the racism, and present a theoretically and/or empirically based plan to reduce it. Note: I strongly encourage you to discuss your chosen example of racism with me prior to beginning the project.
The project output consists of an individually-written paper, and a group presentation. Your work will unfold in four parts:
1. The first half of the paper (10% of your final course grade)
In the first half of your paper, your job is to present an analysis of your example of racism. This analysis should take the form of a literature review (like one finds in the Introduction section of empirical articles), using relevant aspects of our class reading (and additional sources, if you wish). The review of your chosen sources should be organized such that it supports your analysis of the racism situation. Minimum required sources: 10. You may use readings from class, or new, scholarly, material; non-scholarly sources may be used to explain your example of racism, but will not be counted toward the 10 required.
2. A draft or outline of the second half of the paper (5% of your final course grade)
In the second half of your paper, you will provide a plan (or inter-related group of interventions) to ameliorate the racism. This plan must be evidence-based. That is, the elements of the plan (in whole or in parts) must have demonstrated effectiveness. Thus, your plan will be explained with a literature review using predominantly new sources. Click here to see a list of resources to get you started finding relevant racism-reduction literature; also note that you can look to the broader social psychology literature to support your strategies (e.g., role-playing, cognitive dissonance, or fundamental attribution error). The review of your chosen sources should be organized such that it explains your plan. Minimum required sources: 5. These must be 5 new, scholarly sources. You may use class readings, but they will not count toward the 5.
3. Final Paper (30% of your final course grade)
This includes a revised first half integrated with a completed second half. This will be graded independently from any work you previously turned in, so it is fine if you deviate from your earlier work. Writing is a process. Remember, good writers are relentless revisers.
4. Group Presentation (5% of your final course grade)
Your group will present your plan to the class. You will have approximately 30 minutes, and your presentation may take any form you wish. The presentation will be graded primarily on the basis of how clear it is, how compelling (i.e., important or consequential) your material seems to be, and the creative and accurate use of relevant reference material. Your presentation will, by necessity, include less detail than your paper so think carefully about what to include and exclude. In most circumstances, individuals in the group will all receive the same grade.
Important notes:
OTHER IMPORTANT INFORMATION
Email, Blackboard, and Class Web site
You are responsible for maintaining a functioning email account - preferably the account the college provided to you. Check your email often. If you wish to send me email, please note that I have spam-protection software which may automatically delete your message if you are using a domain other than muhlenberg.edu (e.g., yahoo, gmail or hotmail).
Blackboard is an on-line computer program we will be using. You can access Blackboard at the following web site: http://blackboard2.muhlenberg.edu/webapps/login/. Your username in Blackboard is your email user name (your address minus the @muhlenberg.edu). Your password the first time you log on to Blackboard is "changeme" and you should do just that under "personal information" once you are logged on.
Sustainability Practices
I encourage you to print all assignments double-sided or, with the exception of your final paper, you may print on the back of scrap paper. As long as your work is legible and I have space to write comments (i.e., double-space most work), I encourage you to use whatever practices you can to reduce the amount of paper used on campus. Please also remember to recycle discarded paper AND to consider placing usable, one-sided discards in a scrap pile next to public printers so that others may also re-use paper. The printers in Moyer Hall may be loaded with scrap paper already; this practice is encouraged. When purchasing paper, consider recycled options.
Teaching Philosophy
I want you to learn, and grow to love learning. I'll do my best to facilitate that. Please remember, however, that how much you get out of this class (or any class), is largely up to you. With respect to grading and assignments, I try to treat students fairly and provide as much information as I can regarding grading criteria, expectations and deadlines. However, I am also very strict regarding these issues. I will do my best to assist you but you must alert me to potential problems early on and stick to any alternate plans we make. I’m happy to discuss ideas, or review outlines or drafts for any assignments. Please remember I can be much more flexible if you discuss problems with me before an assignment is due - not after. Keep me informed of ways I can help you get as much as you would like to out of this class. I’d like this class to be a positive experience for each of you! Last, please indulge my biggest pet peeve: buy a stapler & carry it with you. You may also use binder clips but no paper clips. I don't want to have to worry about losing a page of your assignment or having two assignments clipped together.
Academic Honesty
Classroom Needs
If you have any specific needs (e.g. related to vision, hearing, learning, or medical conditions, etc.) or any religious or cultural practices that I can help accommodate, please let me know during the first week of class so I can make the appropriate arrangements. In particular, if you feel you may need an accommodation based on the impact of a disability you should contact Academic Support Services (x3433). Early in the course we should talk privately about your accommodations, and I will need the standard documentation. You must remind me of our special arrangements no sooner and no later than one week in advance of the event (e.g., an exam).