Thinking about Race: Perspectives from the Biological and Social Sciences
| Module title | Thinking about Race: Perspectives from the Biological and Social Sciences |
|---|---|
| Module code | POL2081 |
| Academic year | 2024/5 |
| Credits | 15 |
| Module staff | Dr Darren Schreiber (Convenor) |
| Duration: Term | 1 | 2 | 3 |
|---|---|---|---|
| Duration: Weeks | 11 |
| Number students taking module (anticipated) | 75 |
|---|
Module description
Throughout history and across many contexts, racial and ethnic conflicts have often led to costly and bloody ends. Why? This course explores the origins and power of ethnic conflicts from a variety of perspectives: psychology, politics, economics, neuroscience, sociology, law, genetics, and neuroscience. With this diversity of evidence in mind, we will consider the degree to which our racial and ethnic divisions are a consequence of a more fundamental tendency to form coalitions, a tendency at the heart of politics in humans and other species.
Module aims - intentions of the module
Of the many coalitional cleavages that political systems must manage, racial and ethnic divides often demand considerable energy. This course examines the motivations and attitudes that fuel racial and ethnic conflict by drawing from research in psychology, genetics, neuroscience, economics, politics, sociology, and law. By studying a complex phenomenon like racial attitudes from a variety of perspectives, you will learn how to analyze and synthesize divergent approaches while assessing the strengths and limitations of each approach. Furthermore, you will gain a more general understanding than one single methodology can provide.
The course moves from intimate narratives of childhood experience with racial identity to large data sets from survey experiments and evidence taken from studies of genetics and neuroscience. You will learn to evaluate claims that emanate from distinct research traditions and integrate their insights. You will apply legal methods of analysis to psychological theories of motivation. And, you will compare claims from cutting edge research in the biological sciences with arguments founded in psychological, economic, or sociological theories. Working with such range of methods will extend your cognitive dexterity and prepare you for managing the ambiguity inherent in the analysis of complex problems.
Intended Learning Outcomes (ILOs)
ILO: Module-specific skills
On successfully completing the module you will be able to...
- 1. critique and integrate evidence from a variety of methodological approaches;
- 2. evaluate competing claims and find the common conclusions they support;
ILO: Discipline-specific skills
On successfully completing the module you will be able to...
- 3. comprehend statistical results from surveys, psychological experiments, and biological studies;
- 4. identify key assumptions of diverse research paradigms, assessing their appropriateness for particular questions;
ILO: Personal and key skills
On successfully completing the module you will be able to...
- 5. write efficiently and with reduced bias through a structured inductive process that begins with accumulating evidence and moves through a synthesizing framework;
- 6. use appropriate strategies for anxiety management when faced with intellectual challenges at the edge of your competence; and
- 7. demonstrate the ability to work independently, within a limited time frame, and without access to external sources, to complete a specified task.
Syllabus plan
The course is organized around a series of different perspectives on the topic of race.
Book: Why Are All the Black Kids Sitting Together in the Cafeteria?
Political Psychology of Race
Group Threat
Social Dominance Orientation
Symbolic Racism
Principled Conservativism
Implicit/Explicit Attitudes
Biology of Race
Evolutionary Psychology
Neuroscience and Race
Genetics and Race
Learning activities and teaching methods (given in hours of study time)
| Scheduled Learning and Teaching Activities | Guided independent study | Placement / study abroad |
|---|---|---|
| 22 | 128 | 0 |
Details of learning activities and teaching methods
| Category | Hours of study time | Description |
|---|---|---|
| Scheduled Learning & Teaching activities | 22 | 11 x 2 hour seminar |
| Guided Independent Study | 44 | Preparing for seminar - Reading and Research |
| Guided Independent Study | 84 | Completing assessment tasks - Reading, Research and Writing |
Formative assessment
| Form of assessment | Size of the assessment (eg length / duration) | ILOs assessed | Feedback method |
|---|---|---|---|
| Pop quizzes | 250 words, 2 quizzes | 1-7 | Written feedback |
Summative assessment (% of credit)
| Coursework | Written exams | Practical exams |
|---|---|---|
| 50 | 50 | 0 |
Details of summative assessment
| Form of assessment | % of credit | Size of the assessment (eg length / duration) | ILOs assessed | Feedback method |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Essay | 50 | 1500 words | 1-6 | Written feedback |
| Examination | 50 | 1 hour | 1-7 | Written feedback |
| 0 | ||||
| 0 | ||||
| 0 | ||||
| 0 |
Details of re-assessment (where required by referral or deferral)
| Original form of assessment | Form of re-assessment | ILOs re-assessed | Timescale for re-assessment |
|---|---|---|---|
| Essay | Essay (1500 words) | 1-5 | August/September reassessment period |
| Examination | Examination (1 hour) | 1-7 | August/September reassessment period |
Indicative learning resources - Basic reading
Basic reading:
Beverly Daniel Tatum, Why Are All the Black Kids Sitting Together in the Cafeteria? Basic Books. 2017, updated edition.
Michael Giles & Melanie Buckner (1993) “David Duke and Black Threat: An Old Hypothesis Revisited.” Journal of Politics , 55: 702-713. (12 pages).
James Sidanius (1993) “The Psychology of Group Conflict and the Dynamics of Oppression: A Social Dominance Approach.” In S. Iyengar & W. J. McGuire (Eds.), Explorations in Political Psychology pp. 183-219. Durham: Duke University Press. (37 pages)
Sears et al. (1997) “Is it really racism? The origins of white American’s opposition to race-targeted policies.” Public Opinion Quarterly , 61: 16-53 (34 pages)
Sniderman et al. (1996) “Beyond Race: Social Justice as a Race Neutral Ideal.” American Journal of Political Science , 40: 33-55 (23 pages)
Charles Taber (2008) Principles of Color: Race, Ideology, and Political Cognition
Dovidio et al. (1997) “On the Nature of Prejudice: Automatic and Controlled Processes.” Journal of Experimental Social Psychology 33: 510-540 (30 pages)
Thomas Schelling (1978) Micromotives and Macrobehaviors p. 147-155 (8 pages)
Kurzban et al (2001) “Can race be erased? Coalitional computation and social categorization.” Proceedings of National Academy of Sciences , 98: 15387-15392 (6 pages)
Phelps et al. (2000)“Performance on Indirect Measures of Race Evaluation Predicts Amygdala Activation.” Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience (10 pages)
Lieberman et al. “An fMRI investigation of race-related amygdala activity in African-American and Caucasian-American individuals.” Nature Neuroscience (2005) (3 pages)
Golby et al. (2001) “Differential Responses in the Fusiform Region to Same-Race and Other-Race Faces.” Nature Neuroscience (6 pages)
Schreiber & Iacoboni (2011) Huxtables on the Brain: An fMRI study of Race and Norm Violation. Political Psychology (18 pages)
Tishkoff and Kidd (2004) “Implications of biogeography of human populations for ‘race’ and medicine.” Nature Genetics (7 pages)
Jorde and Wodding (2004) “Genetic variation, classification, and ‘race.’” Nature Genetics (6 pages)
Keita et al. (2004) “Conceptualizing human variation.” Nature Genetics (4 pages)
Parra et al. (2004) “Implications of correlations between skin color and genetic ancestry for biomedical research.” Nature Genetics (7 pages)
Indicative learning resources - Web based and electronic resources
ELE – http://vle.exeter.ac.uk/
| Credit value | 15 |
|---|---|
| Module ECTS | 7.5 |
| Module pre-requisites | None |
| Module co-requisites | None |
| NQF level (module) | 5 |
| Available as distance learning? | No |
| Origin date | 14/06/2013 |
| Last revision date | 08/03/2022 |
