Berkley Center

This course combined lectures with seminar-form discussion to explore the complex ways that race impacts political behavior and attitudes in (primarily) American politics. The class specifically focused on the 2016 presidential election—both the lead up and the aftermath. The course took a sociological approach that stressed the constructed nature of both race and politics. As a group, class participants explored the mechanisms through which race informs political behavior, while also paying close attention to the ways that politics also informs our understanding of race. The course treated “race” as multifaceted construct, with multiple (and often times conflicting) influences on political behavior. The course was split into three parts. In the first part it explored the relationship between racial identity and political behavior at the individual level. The second part of the course examined how ideas about racial groups shape political attitudes and behaviors, as well as policy outcomes. The third part of the course explored how race is used to mobilize political and economic actors. This course (SOCI 250) was taught by Corey Fields as a Doyle Seminar (small upper-level classes that foster deepened student learning about diversity and difference through research and dialogue).

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