Department of Sociology
Bachelor of Arts in Sociology and African American and African Diaspora Studies
Students on Summer 2018, Fall 2018, or Spring 2019 requirements SOCAAADBA
Requirements
The major requires at least 40 credit hours, including the requirements listed below.
- Sociology Courses. 21 credit hours, of which at least 12 credit hours must be at the 300–499 level, including:
- Introductory course. One (1) course:
- SOC-S 100 Introduction to Sociology
- SOC-S 210 Economic Sociology
- SOC-S 215 Social Change
- SOC-S 230 Society and the Individual
SOC-S 100 Introduction to Sociology
- Credits
- 3
- Prerequisites
- None
- Description
- Introduction to the concepts and methods of sociology with an emphasis on understanding of contemporary American society.
- Spring 2025CASE SHcourseFall 2024CASE SHcourse
SOC-S 210 Economic Sociology
- Credits
- 3
- Prerequisites
- None
- Description
- Introduction to the sociological study of economic action. Provides an overview of the sociological perspective of the economy on all levels--from the actions of individuals in economic situations, to organizational behavior, to the dynamics of markets and global capitalism.
- Spring 2025CASE SHcourseFall 2024CASE SHcourse
SOC-S 215 Social Change
- Credits
- 3
- Prerequisites
- None
- Description
- Introduction to theoretical and empirical studies of social change. Explores issues such as modernization; rationalization; demographic, economic, and religious causes of change; and reform and revolution.
- Spring 2025CASE SHcourseFall 2024CASE SHcourse
SOC-S 230 Society and the Individual
- Credits
- 3
- Prerequisites
- None
- Description
- Personality and its development; relationship to culture and communication and to social settings; deviant types.
- Repeatability
- Credit not given for both SOC-H 230 and SOC-S 230.
- Spring 2025CASE SHcourseFall 2024CASE SHcourse
- Charts, Graphs, and Tables. One (1) course:
- SOC-S 110 Charts, Graphs, and Tables
SOC-S 110 Charts, Graphs, and Tables
- Credits
- 3
- Prerequisites
- None
- Description
- Develops students' skills as consumers and producers of charts, graphs, and tables. Students learn to use data to depict social trends; assess political programs; and test social science theories. Students learn how to find, read, interpret, and evaluate graphical information, and how to present results in engaging formats.
- Spring 2025CASE NMcourseFall 2024CASE NMcourse
- Social Inequality. One (1) course:
- SOC-S 217 Social Inequality
SOC-S 217 Social Inequality
- Credits
- 3
- Prerequisites
- None
- Description
- Why are income, wealth, and status distributed unequally? Is social inequality good for society? Explores the economic basis of social class, education, and culture; social mobility; social inequality in comparative and historical perspective.
- Spring 2025CASE DUScourseFall 2024CASE DUScourse
- Spring 2025CASE SHcourseFall 2024CASE SHcourse
- Race and Ethnic Relations. One (1) course:
- SOC-S 335 Race and Ethnic Relations
SOC-S 335 Race and Ethnic Relations
- Credits
- 3
- Prerequisites
- None
- Description
- Relations between racial and ethnic minority and majority groups; psychological, cultural, and structural theories of prejudice and discrimination; comparative analysis of diverse systems of intergroup relations.
- Spring 2025CASE DUScourseFall 2024CASE DUScourse
- Spring 2025CASE SHcourseFall 2024CASE SHcourse
- Advanced Electives. Three (3) courses:
- Any SOC-S 300–399 except SOC-S 335
- Any SOC-S 400–499
- Any SOC-X 300–399
- Any SOC-X 400–499
- Introductory course. One (1) course:
- African American and African Diaspora Studies Courses. 18 credit hours, of which at least 12 credit hours must be at the 300–499 level, including:
- Introductory course. One (1) course:
- AAAD-A 150 Survey of the Culture of Black Americans
AAAD-A 150 Survey of the Culture of Black Americans
- Credits
- 3
- Prerequisites
- None
- Notes
- Required for the major
- Description
- Explores the culture of Blacks in America viewed from a broad interdisciplinary approach, employing resources from history, literature, folklore, religion, sociology, and political science.
- Spring 2025CASE AHcourseFall 2024CASE AHcourse
- Spring 2025CASE DUScourseFall 2024CASE DUScourse
- African American History. One (1) course:
- AAAD-A 355 African American History I
- AAAD-A 356 African American History II
AAAD-A 355 African American History I
- Credits
- 3
- Prerequisites
- None
- Description
- History of blacks in the United States. Slavery, abolitionism, Reconstruction, and post-Reconstruction to 1900.
- Repeatability
- Credit given for only one of AAAD-A 355 or HIST-A 355.
- Spring 2025CASE DUScourseFall 2024CASE DUScourse
- Spring 2025CASE SHcourseFall 2024CASE SHcourse
AAAD-A 356 African American History II
- Credits
- 3
- Prerequisites
- None
- Notes
- R: AAAD-A 355
- Description
- 1900 to the present. Migration north, NAACP, Harlem Renaissance, postwar freedom movement.
- Repeatability
- Credit given for only one of AAAD-A 356 or HIST-A 356.
- Spring 2025CASE DUScourseFall 2024CASE DUScourse
- Spring 2025CASE SHcourseFall 2024CASE SHcourse
- African American Literature. One (1) course:
- AAAD-A 379 Early Black American Writing
- AAAD-A 380 Contemporary Black American Writing
AAAD-A 379 Early Black American Writing
- Credits
- 3
- Prerequisites
- None
- Description
- African American writing before World War II, with emphasis on critical reactions and analyses. Includes slave narratives, autobiographies, rhetoric, fiction, and poetry.
- Spring 2025CASE AHcourseFall 2024CASE AHcourse
- Spring 2025CASE DUScourseFall 2024CASE DUScourse
AAAD-A 380 Contemporary Black American Writing
- Credits
- 3
- Prerequisites
- None
- Notes
- R: AAAD-A 379
- Description
- The black experience in America as it has been reflected since World War II in the works of outstanding African American writers: fiction, nonfiction, poetry, and drama.
- Spring 2025CASE AHcourseFall 2024CASE AHcourse
- Spring 2025CASE DUScourseFall 2024CASE DUScourse
- History, Culture, and Social Issues. Nine (9) credit hours:
- AAAD-A 113 Atkins Living-Learning Center Foundational Course
- AAAD-A 154 History of Race in the Americas
- AAAD-A 156 Black Liberation Struggles against Jim Crow and Apartheid
- AAAD-A 203 Studying Blacks of the New World: African Americans and Africans in the African Diaspora
- AAAD-A 205 Black Electoral Politics
- AAAD-A 210 Black Women in the Diaspora
- AAAD-A 238 Communication in Black America
- AAAD-A 250 U.S. Contemporary Minorities
- AAAD-A 255 The Black Church in America
- AAAD-A 263 Contemporary Social Issues in the African American Community
- AAAD-A 264 History of Sports and the African American Experience
- AAAD-A 265 Modern Sports and the African American Experience
- AAAD-A 292 African American Folklore
- AAAD-A 304 Black Paris
- AAAD-A 350 Black Atlantic
- AAAD-A 354 Transnational Americas
- AAAD-A 360 Slavery: Worldwide Perspective
- AAAD-A 363 Research on Contemporary African American Problems I
- AAAD-A 382 Black Community, Law, and Social Change
- AAAD-A 386 Black Feminist Perspectives
- AAAD-A 387 Black Migration
- AAAD-A 391 Black Nationalism
- AAAD-A 398 Advanced Topics in Social and Historical Studies for African American and African Diaspora Studies
- AAAD-A 399 Advanced Topics in Arts and Humanities for African American and African Diaspora Studies
- AAAD-A 405 Civil Rights and Black Power Movements, 1954-1974
- AAAD-A 407 African American and African Protest Strategies
- AAAD-A 408 Race, Gender, and Class in Cross-Cultural Perspective
- AAAD-A 420 Transforming Divided Communities and Societies
- AAAD-A 425 The Black Family in Twentieth-Century Rural America, 1900-1970
- AAAD-A 427 Cross-Cultural Communication
- AAAD-A 447 Race, Crime, and Media
- AAAD-A 452 Historical Issues in Black Education
- AAAD-A 481 Racism and the Law
AAAD-A 113 Atkins Living-Learning Center Foundational Course
- Credits
- 1
- Prerequisites
- Must be an Atkins Living-Learning Center student.
- Description
- Examines the impact of African American history and culture on the nation as a whole and on the international community.
AAAD-A 154 History of Race in the Americas
- Credits
- 3
- Prerequisites
- None
- Description
- Exploration of the development of racism and racial ideologies in the United States, the Caribbean, Latin America, and South America from colonial times to the present. Emphasizes the interaction among cultural, political, and economic factors in shaping patterns of conflict and collaboration, domination and resistance.
- Spring 2025CASE GCCcourseFall 2024CASE GCCcourse
- Spring 2025CASE SHcourseFall 2024CASE SHcourse
AAAD-A 156 Black Liberation Struggles against Jim Crow and Apartheid
- Credits
- 3
- Prerequisites
- None
- Description
- A comparative perspective on American race relations, specifically the similarities and differences of the struggles against Jim Crow in America and against apartheid in South Africa. In both places, the late twentieth century witnessed a revolt against the legal and philosophical framework of white supremacy.
- Spring 2025CASE GCCcourseFall 2024CASE GCCcourse
- Spring 2025CASE SHcourseFall 2024CASE SHcourse
AAAD-A 203 Studying Blacks of the New World: African Americans and Africans in the African Diaspora
- Credits
- 3
- Prerequisites
- None
- Description
- A comparative study of the cultural, historical, and socioeconomic life patterns of African Americans and Diaspora-based Africans in the United States.
- Spring 2025CASE GCCcourseFall 2024CASE GCCcourse
- Spring 2025CASE SHcourseFall 2024CASE SHcourse
AAAD-A 205 Black Electoral Politics
- Credits
- 3
- Prerequisites
- None
- Description
- The course will explore black participation in the formal structures of American government and in the processes by which these structures are accessed. Black participation in local, state, and federal government arenas will be focused upon, and the political benefits to the black community of these involvements will be assessed.
- Spring 2025CASE SHcourseFall 2024CASE SHcourse
AAAD-A 210 Black Women in the Diaspora
- Credits
- 3
- Prerequisites
- None
- Description
- Interdisciplinary examination of salient aspects of black women's history, identity, and experience, including policies, cultural assumptions, and knowledge systems that affect black women's lives. While the primary focus is North America, the lives of black women in other cultural settings within the African Diaspora are also examined.
- Spring 2025CASE DUScourseFall 2024CASE DUScourse
- Spring 2025CASE SHcourseFall 2024CASE SHcourse
AAAD-A 238 Communication in Black America
- Credits
- 3
- Prerequisites
- None
- Description
- Communicative experiences of black Americans, including black dialect, language and ethnicity, interracial communication, recurring themes, spokespersons in black dialogue, and sociohistorical aspects of black language and communication.
- Repeatability
- Credit given for only one of AAAD-A 238 or CMCL-C 238.
- Spring 2025CASE AHcourseFall 2024CASE AHcourse
- Spring 2025CASE DUScourseFall 2024CASE DUScourse
AAAD-A 250 U.S. Contemporary Minorities
- Credits
- 3
- Prerequisites
- None
- Description
- An interdisciplinary study of how members of four minority groups--Native Americans, Asian Americans, blacks, and Hispanics--combine their struggle for social justice with their desire to maintain their own concepts of identity.
- Spring 2025CASE SHcourseFall 2024CASE SHcourse
AAAD-A 255 The Black Church in America
- Credits
- 3
- Prerequisites
- None
- Description
- The church's role as a black social institution from slavery to the present, its religious attitudes as expressed in songs and sermons, and its political activities as exemplified in the minister-politician.
- Spring 2025CASE DUScourseFall 2024CASE DUScourse
- Spring 2025CASE SHcourseFall 2024CASE SHcourse
AAAD-A 263 Contemporary Social Issues in the African American Community
- Credits
- 3
- Prerequisites
- None
- Description
- A seminar, primarily designed for sophomores and juniors, directed toward critical analysis of selected topics germane to the future socioeconomic and political position of African Americans.
- Spring 2025CASE DUScourseFall 2024CASE DUScourse
- Spring 2025CASE SHcourseFall 2024CASE SHcourse
AAAD-A 264 History of Sports and the African American Experience
- Credits
- 3
- Prerequisites
- None
- Description
- Examination of the historical participation and contributions of African Americans in sport. Students study African American sports pioneers and the social conditions affecting their participation. Period studied includes pre-slavery to the civil rights era (1500 to 1960s).
- Spring 2025CASE DUScourseFall 2024CASE DUScourse
- Spring 2025CASE SHcourseFall 2024CASE SHcourse
AAAD-A 265 Modern Sports and the African American Experience
- Credits
- 3
- Prerequisites
- None
- Description
- The impact of African American sports heroes, famous teams, and annual sporting events on the shaping of African American culture and the combating of American racism.
- Spring 2025CASE DUScourseFall 2024CASE DUScourse
- Spring 2025CASE SHcourseFall 2024CASE SHcourse
AAAD-A 292 African American Folklore
- Credits
- 3
- Prerequisites
- None
- Description
- African American culture in the United States viewed in terms of history (antebellum to present) and social change (rural to urban). Use of oral traditions and life histories to explore aspects of black culture and history.
- Repeatability
- Credit given for only one of AAAD-A 292, AAAD-A 392, or FOLK-F 354.
- Spring 2025CASE AHcourseFall 2024CASE AHcourse
AAAD-A 304 Black Paris
- Credits
- 3
- Prerequisites
- None
- Notes
- R: 3 credit hours of literature
- Description
- The common and divergent experiences of African-American, Afro-Caribbean, and African travelers to the "City of Light," from eighteenth-century New Orleans Creoles to twenty-first-century youth of African descent, as seen through literature, performance, film, and other arts. Issues of colonization, expatriation, immigration, exile, the Harlem Renaissance and "negritude," race and diaspora, transnationalism.
- Repeatability
- Credit given for only one of AAAD-A 304 or CMLT-C 363.
- Spring 2025CASE AHcourseFall 2024CASE AHcourse
- Spring 2025CASE GCCcourseFall 2024CASE GCCcourse
AAAD-A 350 Black Atlantic
- Credits
- 3
- Prerequisites
- None
- Description
- This course is an interdisciplinary and comparative study of historical, cultural, and political issues related to Africa and the African Diaspora (the Americas and Europe). Emphasis will also be on team teaching using IUB faculty. Course will be of interest to students in all university departments and schools.
- Spring 2025CASE AHcourseFall 2024CASE AHcourse
AAAD-A 354 Transnational Americas
- Credits
- 3
- Prerequisites
- None
- Description
- Comparative colloquium that explores the recent literature on racial connections between "the local" and "the global" in contemporary American experience. Through immersion in the new "transnational" critiques of the United States, students analyze texts that describe African, Asian, European, indigenous, and Latino sensibilities about culture, homelands, belonging, and exclusion.
- Spring 2025CASE SHcourseFall 2024CASE SHcourse
AAAD-A 360 Slavery: Worldwide Perspective
- Credits
- 3
- Prerequisites
- None
- Description
- Examines several aspects of the classical, indigenous, and modern political/social bondage.
- Spring 2025CASE GCCcourseFall 2024CASE GCCcourse
- Spring 2025CASE SHcourseFall 2024CASE SHcourse
AAAD-A 363 Research on Contemporary African American Problems I
- Credits
- 3
- Prerequisites
- None
- Description
- A research seminar, primarily designed for juniors and seniors, directed toward critical analysis of selected topics germane to the future socioeconomic and political position of African Americans. Reading and discussion of relevant texts, studies, and articles. Includes theory construction, research design, and data collection.
- Spring 2025CASE SHcourseFall 2024CASE SHcourse
AAAD-A 382 Black Community, Law, and Social Change
- Credits
- 3
- Prerequisites
- None
- Description
- Legal evolution of civil rights and analysis of specific relevant legal decisions that stimulated social change (the role of slavery, racial segregation, inequality of educational opportunity, and voting laws).
- Spring 2025CASE SHcourseFall 2024CASE SHcourse
AAAD-A 386 Black Feminist Perspectives
- Credits
- 3
- Prerequisites
- None
- Description
- Examination of the history, development, and manifestation of feminist consciousness among African American women. The course is particularly concerned with how black women's lived experience defines that consciousness, and the differing impact it has among various groups of black women, and in their larger social, political, and cultural communities.
- Spring 2025CASE DUScourseFall 2024CASE DUScourse
- Spring 2025CASE SHcourseFall 2024CASE SHcourse
AAAD-A 387 Black Migration
- Credits
- 3
- Prerequisites
- None
- Description
- Explores the process, patterns, and paradoxes of the incorporation of individuals and groups identified and/or perceived as "immigrants" from a comparative-interdisciplinary perspective. Focuses on persons from "sending" countries in Africa, the Caribbean, and Asia to the United States. Also examines developments in other labor-importing, postindustrial countries such as France and England in relation to the people who settle there.
- Spring 2025CASE GCCcourseFall 2024CASE GCCcourse
- Spring 2025CASE SHcourseFall 2024CASE SHcourse
AAAD-A 391 Black Nationalism
- Credits
- 3
- Prerequisites
- None
- Description
- Consequences of the black diaspora in North America; shifting views of blacks toward their native continent; analysis of current geographic, economic, and political relationships.
- Spring 2025CASE SHcourseFall 2024CASE SHcourse
AAAD-A 398 Advanced Topics in Social and Historical Studies for African American and African Diaspora Studies
- Credits
- 3
- Prerequisites
- None
- Description
- Advanced study and analysis of selected issues and problems within the African American and African Diaspora experience utilizing interdisciplinary interpretation through analytical reasoning and philosophical discussions. Varied topics primarily in the areas of history, politics, sociology, anthropology, and economics.
- Repeatability
- May be repeated with a different topic for a maximum of 6 credit hours.
- Spring 2025CASE SHcourseFall 2024CASE SHcourse
AAAD-A 399 Advanced Topics in Arts and Humanities for African American and African Diaspora Studies
- Credits
- 3
- Prerequisites
- None
- Description
- Advanced study and analysis of selected issues and problems within the African American and African Diaspora experience utilizing interdisciplinary interpretations through analytical reasoning and philosophical discussions. Varied topics primarily in the areas of dance, music, film, theatre and drama, and literature.
- Repeatability
- May be repeated with a different topic for a maximum of 6 credit hours.
- Spring 2025CASE AHcourseFall 2024CASE AHcourse
AAAD-A 405 Civil Rights and Black Power Movements, 1954-1974
- Credits
- 3
- Prerequisites
- None
- Description
- Examines the fight for civil rights by protest organizations such as Southern Christian Leadership Conference, Student Non-Violent Coordinating Committee, and Congress of Racial Equality; the emergence of black leaders such as King, Farmer, and Malcolm X; the challenge posed by Black Power advocates in the Black Panthers and Black Muslims; and the changes in American society made by the black revolution.
- Spring 2025CASE SHcourseFall 2024CASE SHcourse
AAAD-A 407 African American and African Protest Strategies
- Credits
- 3
- Prerequisites
- None
- Description
- An examination of the historical roles, structures, the impact of black protest strategies, and the origins of black movements to assess their impact on communities in Africa and in the diaspora.
- Spring 2025CASE GCCcourseFall 2024CASE GCCcourse
- Spring 2025CASE SHcourseFall 2024CASE SHcourse
AAAD-A 408 Race, Gender, and Class in Cross-Cultural Perspective
- Credits
- 3
- Prerequisites
- None
- Description
- Examination of the influence of race, gender, and class from a perspective of power and culture. Use of interdisciplinary sources, including essays, fiction, art, and social science research to examine how different social groups vie for representation, self-definition, and power in different social and cultural settings.
- Spring 2025CASE DUScourseFall 2024CASE DUScourse
- Spring 2025CASE SHcourseFall 2024CASE SHcourse
AAAD-A 420 Transforming Divided Communities and Societies
- Credits
- 3
- Prerequisites
- None
- Description
- Histories, theories, policies, and citizen, state, corporate, nonprofit sector models of transforming past and present societies divided by race, ethnicity, gender, class, caste, tribe, and religion through restorative and distributive justice movements and policies such as civil rights, affirmative action, reparations, and reconciliation tribunals.
- Spring 2025CASE SHcourseFall 2024CASE SHcourse
AAAD-A 425 The Black Family in Twentieth-Century Rural America, 1900-1970
- Credits
- 3
- Prerequisites
- None
- Description
- Examines the economic, social, cultural and political development of black families residing primarily in rural areas of southern US prior to 1970. Primary attention given to institutional development, race relations, population, and migration.
- Spring 2025CASE SHcourseFall 2024CASE SHcourse
AAAD-A 427 Cross-Cultural Communication
- Credits
- 3
- Prerequisites
- None
- Description
- A survey study of national, cultural, and cross-cultural persuasion in theory and practice.
- Repeatability
- Credit given for only one of AAAD-A 427 or CMCL-C 427.
AAAD-A 447 Race, Crime, and Media
- Credits
- 3
- Prerequisites
- None
- Description
- Focuses on crime reporting in America, addressing the question of whether or not the media distort the picture of crime. In particular, this course explores the mass media treatment of African Americans in the coverage of crime.
AAAD-A 452 Historical Issues in Black Education
- Credits
- 3
- Prerequisites
- None
- Description
- Education of black Americans and its relationship to the African American experience. Trends and patterns in the education of black Americans as they relate to the notions of education "for whom and for what."
- Spring 2025CASE SHcourseFall 2024CASE SHcourse
AAAD-A 481 Racism and the Law
- Credits
- 3
- Prerequisites
- None
- Description
- Contemporary racial problems in American society with regard to law and constitutional principles of basic freedoms and associated conflicts. Effects of societal norms and impact of racism.
- Spring 2025CASE SHcourseFall 2024CASE SHcourse
- Note. Majors are strongly encouraged to take AAAD-A 363 Research on Contemporary African American Problems I when it is taught
- Introductory course. One (1) course:
- Major GPA, Hours, and Minimum Grade Requirements.
- At least 18 credit hours in the major must be completed in courses taken through the Indiana University Bloomington campus or an IU-administered or IU co-sponsored Overseas Study program.
- At least 18 credit hours in the major must be completed at the 300–499 level.
- Except for the GPA requirement, a grade of C- or higher is required for a course to count toward a requirement in the major.
- A GPA of at least 2.000 for all courses taken in the major—including those where a grade lower than C- is earned—is required.
- Exceptions to major requirements may be made with the approval of the department's Director of Undergraduate Studies, subject to final approval by the College of Arts and Sciences.
The Bachelor of Arts degree requires at least 120 credit hours, to include the following:
- College of Arts and Sciences Credit Hours. At least 100 credit hours must come from College of Arts and Sciences disciplines.
- Upper Division Courses. At least 42 credit hours (of the 120) must be at the 300–499 level.
- College Residency. Following completion of the 60th credit hour toward degree, at least 36 credit hours of College of Arts and Sciences coursework must be completed through the Indiana University Bloomington campus or an IU-administered or IU co-sponsored Overseas Study program.
- College GPA. A cumulative grade point average (GPA) of at least 2.000 is required for all courses taken at Indiana University.
- CASE Requirements. The following College of Arts and Sciences Education (CASE) requirements must be completed:
- CASE Foundations
- CASE Breadth of Inquiry
- CASE Culture Studies
- CASE Critical Approaches: 1 course
- CASE Foreign Language: Proficiency in a single foreign language through the second semester of the second year of college-level coursework
- CASE Intensive Writing: 1 course
- CASE Public Oral Communication: 1 course
- Major. Completion of the major as outlined in the Major Requirements section above.
Most students must also successfully complete the Indiana University Bloomington General Education program.