Essential Learning Outcomes
This is a General Education course designated as meeting the Social and Behavioral Sciences requirement. Throughout the semester, we will draw on several case studies and examples to demonstrate the breadth of humanity’s cultural diversity and the many tools that anthropology draws upon to investigate the human condition. Lessons will expand students’ spatial perspective to the global level and their temporal perspective to the beginning of humankind to enable better appreciation for the active role we all take in the cultural systems that comprise our worlds. Through reflections inspired by course materials, students may better consider how they can contribute to society in ways they find positive and meaningful. Of course, understanding how, when, where, and why students want to contribute to society requires critical thinking skills. After successfully completing this course, students will be able to:
1. Examine institutions and human behavior through social and behavioral concepts, methods, or theories;
2. Analyze by identifying diverse perspectives to explore and examine social and behavioral phenomena; and
3. Apply discipline-relevant and scientific theories and methods to make inferences about or applications to social and behavioral phenomena at personal, institutional, or cultural levels.
Specific Course Outcomes
By the end of this course, students will possess proficient knowledge of:
· The diverse social, historical, and behavioral forms that comprise the human condition;
· The basic ethical, methodological, and conceptual tools that guide research undertaken by cultural anthropologists;
· The reasoning behind and considerations necessary for cross-cultural social theorizing;
· The many important ways in which power dynamics and social hierarchies shape people’s lived identities and experiential realities; and
· The connections between local constructions and global processes.