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Undergraduate spring application deadline is December 1 for spring term.

ANTH 383 Careers in Social Issues: Applied and Public Anthropology and Sociology

Intended for any student with an interest in careers addressing social problems, this course explores how anthropology and sociology work outside the classroom. Diverse fields like health care, government, corporate research, immigration, international development, and more apply anthropological and sociological insights and methods. Further, publicly-oriented anthropology and sociology professors take lessons from the classroom and apply them to the real world. The course starts by examining case studies from such applied and public work. After identifying a particular social issue they wish to address, students will take an ethnographic approach to exploring it, and create dossiers that include relevant research, lists of organizations, necessary skills and methods, and types of work available. By end of semester, students will have informational interviews with professionals working on their chosen issue.
4 Undergraduate credits

Effective August 14, 2023 to present

Meets graduation requirements for

Learning outcomes

General

  • Evaluate case studies in applied and public anthropology and sociology for efficacy, equity, and sustainability.
  • Apply ethnographic, computer literacy, and academic research skills
  • Analyze the cultures and social structures surrounding social issues
  • Synthesize academic and popular knowledge around important social issues
  • Identify and evaluate organizations and skill sets that address important social issues
  • Communicate orally and through writing at the upper-division college level

Minnesota Transfer Curriculum

Goal 5: History and the Social and Behavioral Sciences

  • Employ the methods and data that historians and social and behavioral scientists use to investigate the human condition.
  • Examine social institutions and processes across a range of historical periods and cultures.
  • Use and critique alternative explanatory systems or theories.
  • Develop and communicate alternative explanations or solutions for contemporary social issues.

Goal 7: Human Diversity

  • Understand the development of and the changing meanings of group identities in the United States' history and culture.
  • Demonstrate an awareness of the individual and institutional dynamics of unequal power relations between groups in contemporary society.
  • Analyze their own attitudes, behaviors, concepts and beliefs regarding diversity, racism, and bigotry.
  • Describe and discuss the experience and contributions (political, social, economic, etc.) of the many groups that shape American society and culture, in particular those groups that have suffered discrimination and exclusion.
  • Demonstrate communication skills necessary for living and working effectively in a society with great population diversity.

Spring 2025

Section Title Instructor books eservices
50 Careers in Social Issues: Applied and Public Anthropology and Sociology Santos, Jose L. Books for ANTH-383-50 Spring 2025 Course details for ANTH-383-50 Spring 2025