COURSES TAUGHT: Urban Society and Social Conflict The goal of this course is to encourage critical inquiry into urban sociology and provide both theoretical and practical exposure to urban issues. Each year, students is required to conduct a study of a particular urban community. The community study is designed to encourage students to investigate issues relevant to urban communities. The course integrates the use of computer technology where each student explored a particular community issue using Community 2020 mapping software. Each student produced maps, charts and graphs comparing demographic data with geography, education, crime, employment, income and other variables relevant to their topic. Black Social Movements in the United States This course explores the historical and contemporary issues concerning African American involvement in North American social movements. The chief purpose of this course is to give students a broad overview of the major questions, dominant theoretical perspectives and empirical studies related to black social movements. As a strategy to engage the class in a hands-on learning experience, students participate in the Black Panther Legacy Tour in Oakland. The Legacy Tour is a service provided by the Dr. Huey P. Newton Foundation that explores the ways in which the Black Panther Party addressed social and community problems in Oakland California during the 1960s and 70s. The project provides a tour of the historic sites of the Black Panther Party and examined the context in which the organization emerged. Sociology 136 Sociology of Deviance This course explores the ways in which our society defines what is “normal” or “standard”. In this course, I integrate a series of experiential learning activities where students explored such issues as power, deviance and privilege. Each activity is designed to generate both cognitive as well as emotional responses to the selected issues. After each activity, students are asked to discuss, interpret and apply the information to their own lives. For example, students explore their own deviance and investigated how their own deviance was different or similar to forms of deviance such as prostitution, addictions and crime. Students also explore elite deviance and investigated how presidential or corporate crime might impact their notions of socially accepted human behavior. Educating African American Children and Youth The goals of this course are twofold. First is to introduce students to relevant social theory regarding the education of African American students. Second, the course provide students with practical strategies and successful models of educational and youth development practices. In this course, I integratJanuary 12, 2008s of working with African American children and youth with Leadership Excellence. These activities allow for new teachers or those considering teaching to learn more about what they might bring to teaching African American students as well as instructional strategies useful in urban settings. Qualitative Methods in Africana and Sociological Research This course is designed with two primary goals in mind. The first is to provide students with analytical skill necessary for qualitative inquiry in the study of black life. The second is to provide students with methodological strategies required for collecting and analyzing qualitative data. This course require each student to develop a research question, prepare a literature review, collect and analyze data and report their findings in a research paper. Students in this course uses standard qualitative equipment such as tape recorders, transcribing machines and are trained in basic coding techniques. Black Social Science This course focuses on understanding the African American experience through various forms of social science. Through sociology, anthropology, psychology and political science, students explore a broad range of issues relevant to understanding the African American experience. Course Outcomes The outcomes and objectives for this course are to: Investigate the nature of scientific discovery in various social scientific disciplines. Provide explanations for social inequality in black America. Introduce prominent theories about specific issues in black life. Social Theory in the Study of Black Life This graduate course explores how social theory can be used as a tool to explain, understand and address issues in Black life. The course provides graduate students with an overview of several important theoretical paradigms and uses key ideas such as power, deconstruction, identity, and hegemony as tools to explore issues related to gender, poverty, culture and sexuality in black life. Borrowing from several key social theories, the course introduces students to innovative and contemporary research on the study of black life in America. Course Objectives The outcomes and objectives for this course are as follows: Through comparative analysis, students will develop critical thinking skills related to the study of black life. Develop, design and conduct a mini-study related to issues in black life. Understand and apply prominent theories about specific issues in black life. Hip Hop, Globalizations and the Politics of Identity The course is an examination of the cultural emergence and social transformation we call hip-hop. In this course we explore hip hop culture as an art form, culture, resistance, as crass consumerism, as liberation, as misogyny, and as intergenerational generational dialogue. From a sociological and cultural studies perspective, we examine hip hop’s aesthetic power as it shapes, race, gender and mutually shaped by economic, political and social issues. Course Objectives To expose students to complex social forces that gave rise to hip hop and to explore how hip-hop culture has been by shaped these forces both nationally and internationally. To explore hip-hop as culture, knowledge, resistance, consumerism, art and as politics in post civil rights America. To prepare students to offer informed critique of hip-hop as consumers, cultural producers, political actors and teachers. Urban Issues of Black Children & Youth This course explores the educational issues concerning African American children and youth. One theme revisited throughout this course is the idea that a better understanding of urban environments, gives us insight into how these environments influence the development and education of children and youth. The course is guided by an investigation into the impact of race, class and gender in various educational and community contexts. Using social theory, students will gain a greater understanding of the various challenges and opportunities facing African American students in urban public schools. The goal of this course is twofold. First is to introduce students to relevant social theory regarding the education of African American students. The course begins with a brief overview of the historical development of education among African Americans and introduces students to conventional as well as controversial explanations of academic achievement for African American students. Second, the course provides students with practical strategies and successful models of educational and youth development practices. Introduction to African American Studies Introduction to Black Studies is a survey course designed to provide students with an overview of the history and development of Black Studies as an academic discipline. Born out of the Black community and students’ struggle for a relevant and meaningful education, Black Studies is driven by the notion of libratory scholarship and community revitalization. The course focuses on understanding the African American experience, particularly as it relates to the historical, political, cultural spheres of African American life and exposed to a broad range of issues relevant to understanding the African American experience. Beginning with the slave trade, students will gain a critical understanding of how African American life is situated within politics, education and American culture.
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