Executive Summary
Metropolitan State University (MN) offers an undergraduate Bachelor of Arts degree in Ethnic Studies, a program that “spotlights diverse ethnic communities in the United States within a globalized, transnational context.”
- The program “centers on the experiences, voices, collective memories and in-group diversity of ethnic and racialized communities of color, as well as their coalitions and allies.”
- “Situated at the heart of our program are matters of race, racism, racialization and power; the viscous nature of ethnic identity development and performance; and interactions among groups.”
- Coursework in the program “converges at the intersections of race, religion, gender, class, and sexuality in the shaping of perspectives and life chances.”
- Students learn “how to be life-long learners, cultural bridges and influential in promoting a more equitable society.”
- A noted outcome of the Ethnic Studies program is that students will “understand and apply critical concepts of racialization, racial formation and their intersection with gender, sexuality, socio-economic class, and national and religious identity.”
- “Students will … analyze structures of dominance, power, and ideology and the concomitant perpetuation of racial inequality.”
Courses
To earn a B.A. in Ethnic Studies from Metro State University, students are required to take courses including Introduction to Ethnic Studies, Theories of Race, Ethnicity and Culture, and Applied Research for Social Change.
ETHS 100: “Introduction to Ethnic Studies”
In Introduction to Ethnic Studies, students are taught to be able to define “key terms” such as “race as a social construction, racism, institutional racism, racialization, racial formation, color-blind racism, culture, and ethnicity.”
- Students will be able to “identify the kinds of structural inequalities that are part of everyday life in the United States.”
ETHS 200: “Theories of Race, Ethnicity And Culture”
In Theories of Race, Ethnicity and Culture, students are taught the “development of ideas about race, the relationship between race and ethnicity, notions of culture and cultural authenticity, racism, white supremacy and inequality, and critical approaches to these concepts.”
- Students are taught how to “anticipate and express how the intersection of race with gender, class, and sexuality affects racial-ethnic identity formation.
- Students will be able to “recognize and describe the effects of racism and white supremacy on racial identity formations in the United States.
ETHS 400: “Applied Research for Social Change”
In Applied Research for Social Change, students are taught how to “analyze and evaluate the impact of racism, sexism, classism, heterosexism and Eurocentric view of religion that have drastic consequences on life chances of Americans of color.”
Electives
Examples of electives offered to Ethnic Studies majors include:
ETHS 303 -The Politics of Racial Resistance and Protest in the United States
The course focuses on the “various efforts by individuals and communities of color as well as Native communities to challenge institutional racism, state oppression, and other intersectional forms of domination along with their devastating impact on the parameters of everyday life, the human psyche, families, and American society” as well as the “individual acts of protest and social resistance movements continue to play a central role in the construction of politicized racial/indigenous identities and they also inform our understanding of the histories of these communities as well as the structures of settler colonialism, enslavement, nation building, and white supremacy.”
ETHS 324 – Race, Identity, and the Internet
The course “examines conceptions and constructions of race in relation to the Internet as a multidimensional socio-cultural, economic, and political phenomenon, with a specific focus on the United States” and includes “varied cultural histories and social impacts of the Internet; notions of identity on the Internet; race, embodiment, and disembodiment; social media, race, and racial controversy; electronic activism around race and racial identities on the Internet, and different theoretical approaches to understanding the unique socio-cultural dimensions of race and the internet.”
ETHS 327 – Racial and Ethnic Futurisms: Presence, Empowerment, and Imagination
The course “explores Black (such as Afrofuturism), Indigenous, Latina/o, and Asian American imaginative worlds and futurisms (visions of the world that often blend timelines and events) through interdisciplinary methods and concepts from Ethnic Studies.”
