PHILOSOPHICAL ISSUES IN PREJUDICE & DISCRIMINATION

VAL 140-201 Linked with Academic Writing I - CPN 101-201

E-mail - russellk@cortland.edu

Home page -http://snycorva.cortland.edu/~russellk

Required Readings

• Berger, John. Ways of Seeing. New York: Penguin Books, 1977.
• Bucher, Richard D. Diversity Consciousness. Prentice Hall, 2000.
• Petry, Ann. The Street. New York: Houghton Mifflin & Co., 1998
• Welton, Neva and Linda Wolf. Global Uprising: Confronting the Tyrannies of the 21st Century, Stories from a New Generation of Activists. British Columbia, Canada: New Society Publishers, 2001.
• Articles on reserve in the library and handouts will supplement the main textbooks.

Course description

This course will examine oppression due to race, ethnicity, disability, sexual orientation, gender and class. Strategies of social change will be evaluated as ways to enhance freedom, justice and equality. We will be particularly interested in how power is distributed by social group and how institutionalized patterns of behavior allow inequality to persist.

The class will emphasize critical thinking about ethical and political problems that confront us in everyday life. It will challenge you to develop your own stand on selected issues but to sympathetically understand alternative points of view. You will be encouraged to work collaboratively with other students in responding to class material.

Course requirements and grading

Class participation (10 % of grade):

You are expected to attend every class session fully prepared having done the work for that day. Actively participating in class discussion is important! Here are some suggestions to prepare for class. Consider these questions:

• What is the most interesting thing you got out of the assignments? • What was the hardest thing to understand?
• Give an example of a controversy or issue from another class or your life that seems relevant to the assignments.
• Write up one or two questions you want the class to discuss.

What counts as participation? Speaking up in class in constructive ways - either with questions or comments, collaborating effectively with other students and me, coming into my office, helping other students, etc.

CPN + VAL**

• Essay 1 – Sexual objectification in advertising: analysis and evaluation essay (+ presentation) 20%
• Essay 2 –– Campus-based impromptu argument essay 10%
• Essay 3 – Oppression in The Street 20%
• Group presentation on advertisements and sexual objectification (graded as a component of work for your Essay 1)

** These assignments are the same for CPN101 and VAL140. Please be aware, however, that you may receive different semester grades because of different course requirements.

VAL 140 only

One take home exam (Due during final exam week) 20%

Miscellaneous writing: You will be asked to do occasional writing in class or homework to demonstrate you have done reading assignments and to convey how well you've understood them. Also for both 140 & 101 you'll be required to keep an idea journal (you'll regularly post your idea entries on WebCT and print all entries up to hand in at the end of the semester). The point of these writing assignments is to develop your skill in using the analytic concepts we study in class. This coursework will be graded (acceptable), + (excellent), and - (unacceptable).

Outside activity reports 10 %
(four are required; 200 words– typed)

Attend a campus event of relevance to the class. These will be announced in class or campus publications. Turn your reports in within one week of the activity.

What to put in your reports:

do not summarize the whole event

pick an analytic concept you are learning from our class

use this concept to analyze what you learned at the activity

react to the information from your own point of view

Required activities:

A. (Two reports) Diversity Conference April 19-20 and the preceding Diversity Week at SUNY-Cortland. You are required to attend as many sessions as you can. Write up a report on ideas you learned about in one session of both the conference and the Week.

B. Go to the Electronic Media Center in Memorial Library and view one segment of Eyes on the Prize. Due on or before March 7. To see details about the contents of Eyes on the Prize segments, link to the Eyes on the Prize handout from the VAL 140 web site.

C. Scholars' Day: All classes on campus will be canceled 8:00am-5:00pm on Wednesday, April 17. You are required to attend as many sessions as you can. Write up a report on ideas you learned about in one session.

 

Extra credit: You can earn extra credit for doing more activity reports.

Policies and additional information

1. SUNY Cortland is committed to upholding and maintaining all aspects of the federal Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990 (ADA) and Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act of 1973.

If you are a student with a disability and wish to request accommodations, please contact the Office of Disability Services located in B-40 Van Hoesen Hall or call (607) 753-2066 for an appointment. Any information regarding your disability will remain confidential. Because many accommodations require early planning, requests for accommodations should be made as early as possible. Any requests for accommodations will be reviewed in a timely manner to determine their appropriateness to this setting.

2. E-mail: Announcements, homework assignments, and information pertinent to our course work will be distributed by E-mail. Please get your account set up before the end of the first week. ALWAYS CHECK YOUR MAIL BEFORE CLASS.

3. Absolutely NO late work will be accepted unless PRIOR arrangements are made with the instructor. Such arrangements will be made only under unusual circumstances.

4. Plagiarism: All work submitted must be your own. Ideas borrowed from others, either directly or through paraphrase, must be well-documented through endnotes or footnotes. If I suspect plagiarism the student will be reported to the Provost and can either accept the charge or defend her or himself in the Grievance Tribunal.

5. You are expected to attend every class session and actively participate in discussion. Three unexcused absences are acceptable; excessive absence can lower your grade.

6. If you are absent, you are responsible for finding out what went on in class, whether any assignments were given, and for keeping up with your work.

General Education

VAL 140 satisfies requirements for Category 2. The 2000-2001 Catalog describes GE2 as follows: The goal of this category is to educate students about the nature of prejudice and discrimination and their impact on the people of this country and throughout the world.

Assumptions
1. A liberal education should enable students to examine critically the ways they think about themselves as well as other people. 2. Understanding prejudice and discrimination is necessary as a first step in eliminating them.

Objectives
1. To examine issues such as power and bias as they relate to prejudice and discrimination, and how these issues have determined attitudes, institutions, dominance and subdominance.
2. To analyze how various beliefs can lead to conflicting conclusions about a society and its norms, values, and institutions.
3. To study the individual and institutional nature, as well as the extent of prejudice and discrimination, either in the American context with attention given to the global dimension, or in the global context with attention given to the American dimension.
4. To examine prejudice and discrimination in relation to unequal distribution of power.
5. To examine various aspects of prejudice and discrimination such as a moral, historical, educational, health, economic, linguistic, political psychological, and social dimensions. Other intellectual perspectives may be included. No course need embrace all disciplinary perspectives.
6. To examine the factors upon which prejudice and discrimination may be based, e.g.: race and/or gender as well as, class, ethnicity, religion, age, sexual orientation, or disability.

Created by Kathryn Russell
Last modified on 8-28-00