--- title: Race & Ethnicity description: This topic examines race and ethnicity as social, historical, and political constructs. Learners will analyze how racial categories are formed, how systemic inequalities are maintained, and how diverse groups construct identity and resist discrimination. category: humanities subcategory: cultural-studies difficulty: beginner, intermediate, advanced url: /subject/cultural-studies-race-ethnicity --- # Race & Ethnicity This topic examines race and ethnicity as social, historical, and political constructs. Learners will analyze how racial categories are formed, how systemic inequalities are maintained, and how diverse groups construct identity and resist discrimination. ## Available Resources 7 Books • 1 Courses • 5 Websites ## Websites ### 1. Pew Research Center - Race & Ethnicity A topic hub collecting survey reports, demographic analyses, and downloadable datasets covering racial and ethnic groups in the United States. Readers can track shifting attitudes, population trends, and identity measurement, then cite nationally representative figures accurately. **Difficulty:** Beginner | **Price:** Free **Link:** https://www.pewresearch.org/topic/race-ethnicity/ **Tags:** demographics, survey research, public opinion, racial identity, united states ### 2. Sociology of Race and Ethnicity Journal Quarterly peer-reviewed journal of the American Sociological Association's Section on Racial and Ethnic Minorities, published by SAGE. Readers can follow current empirical and theoretical scholarship in the field and locate primary research for literature reviews. **Difficulty:** Beginner | **Price:** Free **Link:** https://journals.sagepub.com/home/sre **Tags:** sociology, academic journal, peer-reviewed research, race and ethnicity, empirical research ### 3. racialequitytools.org Race Equity Tools is a resource hub that curates free tools, frameworks, and practical guides to advance racial equity in organizations and communities. It features toolkits, assessment instruments, case studies, and articles to help with planning, implementing, and evaluating equity-focused work. **Difficulty:** Intermediate | **Language:** English | **Price:** Free **Link:** https://racialequitytools.org **Tags:** websites, humanities-social-sciences, cultural-studies ### 4. understandingrace.org UnderstandingRace.org is an educational resource that explains race and ethnicity, their historical development, and how they shape social life and policy. The site features explainers, articles, and classroom‑friendly materials to help learners understand race, racism, and diversity. **Difficulty:** Intermediate | **Language:** English | **Price:** Free **Link:** https://understandingrace.org **Tags:** websites, humanities-social-sciences, sociology ### 5. sceneonradio.org/seeing-white Seeing White is a podcast series from Scene on Radio that examines whiteness, its history, and its role in shaping race and power in America through interviews, storytelling, and historical context. The page provides episodes, transcripts, show notes, and related resources for learning about race and whiteness. **Difficulty:** Intermediate | **Language:** English | **Price:** Free **Link:** https://sceneonradio.org/seeing-white **Tags:** websites, humanities-social-sciences, cultural-studies ## Podcasts ### 1. Indebted: Debt and Race in America **Author:** Maurice BP-Weeks Ten-part podcast series from Convergence magazine in which organizer Maurice BP-Weeks examines medical, student, payday, carceral and municipal debt. Listeners understand how these debt mechanisms work and why they fall hardest on Black households and widen the racial wealth gap. **Difficulty:** Beginner | **Language:** en-US | **Price:** Free **Link:** https://convergencemag.com/podcast-shows/indebted/ **Tags:** household-debt, racial-wealth-gap, economic-inequality, predatory-lending, student-debt ### 2. Latino USA **Author:** Maria Hinojosa Weekly public radio program and podcast, on air since 1993 and hosted by Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Maria Hinojosa, reporting on Latino life in the United States. Episodes cover immigration, politics, identity, music and culture, giving listeners grounded context on Latino communities and their history. **Difficulty:** Beginner | **Language:** en | **Price:** Free **Link:** https://www.latinousa.org/ **Tags:** latino-studies, immigration, identity, journalism, united-states ### 3. The Stoop **Author:** Hana Baba and Leila Day The Stoop podcast digs into stories that are not always shared out in the open. Hosts Leila Day and Hana Baba start conversations and provide professionally-reported stories about what it means to be Black and how we talk about blackness. Come hang out on The Stoop as we dialog about the diaspora. **Difficulty:** Beginner | **Language:** en | **Price:** Free **Link:** https://www.thestoop.org/ **Tags:** black diaspora, blackness, narrative journalism, identity, culture ### 4. Code Switch **Author:** NPR What's CODE SWITCH? It's the fearless conversations about race that you've been waiting for. Hosted by journalists of color, our podcast tackles the subject of race with empathy and humor. We explore how race affects every part of society — from politics and pop culture to history, food and everything in between. This podcast makes all of us part of the conversation — because we're all part of the story. Code Switch was named Apple Podcasts' first-ever Show of the Year in 2020.Want to level up your Code Switch game? Try Code Switch Plus. Your subscription supports the show and unlocks a spon... **Difficulty:** Beginner | **Language:** en-us | **Price:** Free **Link:** https://www.npr.org/podcasts/510312/codeswitch **Tags:** race in america, journalism, identity, culture, npr ## Books ### 1. The Possessive Investment in Whiteness **Author:** George Lipsitz George Lipsitz argues that US housing, tax, and labor policies channeled wealth toward white Americans across the twentieth century. Readers come away able to trace how specific laws produced durable racial gaps in assets and opportunity. **Difficulty:** Intermediate | **Language:** English | **Price:** Paid **Link:** https://www.amazon.com/dp/1566396352?tag=edmonddante07-20 **Tags:** books, humanities-social-sciences, cultural-studies ### 2. Between the World and Me **Author:** Ta-Nehisi Coates Written as a letter to the author's teenage son, this memoir examines the vulnerability of the Black body in America through Baltimore, Howard University, and Civil War memory. Readers gain a first-person account of racism as lived experience. **Difficulty:** Intermediate | **Language:** English | **Price:** Paid **Link:** https://www.amazon.com/dp/1925240703?tag=edmonddante07-20 **Tags:** books, humanities-social-sciences, sociology ### 3. Racial Formation **Author:** Michael Omi and Howard Winant Omi and Winant's framework treats race as a socially and politically constructed category, continually remade through state policy and social movements. Readers finish able to analyze how racial categories shift across historical periods rather than reflecting fixed biology. **Difficulty:** Intermediate | **Language:** English | **Price:** Paid **Link:** https://www.amazon.com/dp/0415908647?tag=edmonddante07-20 **Tags:** books, humanities-social-sciences, cultural-studies ### 4. The Karma of Brown Folk **Author:** Vijay Prashad Vijay Prashad's critical study of how South Asian Americans came to be cast as a model minority and how that image has been used against Black Americans. It covers US immigration policy, American Orientalism, caste and race, and anti-racist solidarity. **Difficulty:** Intermediate | **Language:** English | **Price:** Paid **Link:** https://www.amazon.com/dp/0816634386?tag=edmonddante07-20 **Tags:** south-asian-americans, model-minority, racialization, diaspora, immigration-policy ### 5. Racial Domination, Racial Progress **Author:** Matthew Desmond and Mustafa Emirbayer A sociology textbook by Matthew Desmond and Mustafa Emirbayer surveying race in America across politics, economics, housing, education, health, and culture. Students finish able to apply sociological evidence and concepts to contemporary debates about racial inequality. **Difficulty:** Intermediate | **Language:** English | **Price:** Paid **Link:** https://www.amazon.com/dp/0072970510?tag=edmonddante07-20 **Tags:** books, humanities-social-sciences, sociology ### 6. How Race Is Made **Author:** Mark M. Smith Historian Mark M. Smith traces how white Southerners came to claim they could see, hear, and smell racial difference, and how these sensory beliefs propped up slavery and segregation. Readers gain a sensory history of racial classification. **Difficulty:** Intermediate | **Language:** English | **Price:** Paid **Link:** https://www.amazon.com/dp/0807859257?tag=edmonddante07-20 **Tags:** books, humanities-social-sciences, cultural-studies ### 7. Colored Cosmopolitanism **Author:** Nico Slate Nico Slate's history of the links between African American and Indian freedom struggles from the late nineteenth century to the 1960s, including Du Bois, Gandhi and King. Readers see how activists exchanged tactics and ideas across borders and where those solidarities failed. **Difficulty:** Intermediate | **Language:** English | **Price:** Paid **Link:** https://www.amazon.com/dp/0674979729?tag=edmonddante07-20 **Tags:** civil-rights-movement, indian-independence, transnational-solidarity, anticolonialism, african-american-history ## Courses ### 1. Race and Cultural Diversity University of Illinois course taught by James D. Anderson and Yoon Pak, covering how race and ethnicity shaped American institutions, law, and social relations from the colonial era onward. Completers can compare experiences across European, Native, African, Latino, and Asian American groups. **Difficulty:** Beginner | **Language:** English | **Price:** Free **Link:** https://www.coursera.org/learn/race-cultural-diversity-american-life **Tags:** courses, humanities-social-sciences, cultural-studies --- *This content is part of Dantes.io - Your Treasure Map to Knowledge* *Curated by humans at Dantes.io. Personal study use welcome; republishing this curation requires permission (team@dantes.io).* View this page online: https://dantes.io/subject/cultural-studies-race-ethnicity