Week 12 · Readings & resources

Week 12 — Readings & Resources

Cultural Anthropology Free sample edition

Your primary reading is Chapter 12 (in this module). Everything below is the optional, go-deeper layer — pick what helps, skip the rest.

How to use this page

This page has 11 items (5 readings and 6 videos). Allow 101–120 minutes for everything. Each group links back to the matching chapter section and class-session segment, so use the full menu when you want more, or take the quick path below.

Every video here has captions: turn them on with the CC button in the player. The chapter covers the same ideas in text.

Pick-one quick path (19–23 min total)

① Why skin color varies, and why it is a gradient

Chapter 12, Section “See human variation as continuous” · Session 1, Segment 1, “Variation is a gradient” · Remember: skin color tracks the ultraviolet light a person's ancestors met, changes gradually across geography, and predicts no other trait.

Human Skin Color Variation — Smithsonian Human Origins Program — a natural history museum's research program explains skin color as an adaptation to ultraviolet light and describes human genetic variation as gradients, not clusters; it also gives its own figure for how much variation lies between individuals, so write that figure down with its source as one more analysis, not as the number. (reading, 8–12 min)
Population Genetics: Why do we have different skin colors?: Crash Course Biology #14 — CrashCourse — a biology episode on genetic diversity, melanin, and gradual change across geography; listen for the moment it explains why race is not a biologically valid category, and match it to the chapter's gradient picture. (video, 13 min) (captions: creator)
Where Does My Skin Color Come From? — PBS Terra — a biological anthropologist walks through how skin color is inherited and how it is spread across the globe; note one way the video shows that skin color does not sort people into neat boxes. (video, 9 min) (captions: creator)

② Race as something societies make, with real effects

Chapter 12, Section “Define race: a social classification with real effects” · Session 2, Segment 4, “Race is made, and race is real in its effects” · Remember: societies make racial categories, the categories change across places and times, and the inequality built around them is real.

Race, from the Talking Glossary of Genomic and Genetic Terms — National Human Genome Research Institute — a federal genome research institute's short glossary entry on race as a way of grouping people that societies built, with a line on where genetic variation lies; compare its wording with the chapter's definition of race. This builds on Week 9's work with kinship and descent, where kinship turned out to be cultural and not only biological. Use it while completing the Week-12 module overview. (reading, 3–5 min)
Race and Ethnicity - Part 1: Rethinking Race — AnthroDorphins — an anthropologist traces how the discipline rethought race, including how Boas challenged it; as you watch, write the shape of Boas's argument in four steps, the way the chapter does, and keep the reanalyses an open question. (video, 13 min) (captions: creator)
The Origin of Race in the USA — PBS Origins — a history episode on how racial categories in the United States came to be tied to visible traits, and how some groups were reclassified over time; pick one reclassification and say what it shows about who makes a category. (video, 10 min) (captions: creator)

③ Race is not ethnicity

Chapter 12, Section “Tell ethnicity from race, and name nationalism” · Session 2, Segment 5, “Ethnicity, and the idea of a nation” · Remember: ethnicity is a shared heritage of ancestry, language, religion, or customs, and it is not the same as race.

Race & Ethnicity: Crash Course Sociology #34 — CrashCourse — a sociology episode on how definitions of race and ethnicity have changed over time and across places; each time the host uses race or ethnicity, say whether the idea rests on a society's reading of bodies or on a shared heritage. The episode describes the census categories in use before the 2024 revision, with six race categories and Hispanic origin asked separately, so set its list beside the 2024 standard below rather than reading it as the current one; its population figures and its mention of tensions over immigration in another country are its own and outside this course. (video, 11 min) (captions: creator)
What is Ethnicity? — PBS Origins — a history episode on how ethnic identities form and change, and whether one person can hold more than one; list two ways the video shows people claiming and displaying a heritage. (video, 10 min) (captions: creator)

④ Census boxes belong to the body that drew them

Chapter 12, Section “Read census categories as the issuing body's own” · Session 2, Segment 6, “Reading the census boxes” · Remember: census categories are the issuing body's own categories, revised over time, and not a list of natural groups.

What Census Calls Us — Pew Research Center — a research center's timeline of the race and ethnicity categories used in every United States census; count how often the boxes changed, and use the count as evidence that the categories are made by people. (reading, 6–10 min)
What Updates to OMB's Race/Ethnicity Standards Mean for the Census Bureau — U.S. Census Bureau — the issuing body's own explanation of the 2024 standard: the combined question, the new Middle Eastern or North African category, and the instruction to select all that apply; find all seven minimum categories in its table. (reading, 8–12 min)

Optional one-stop reference (free online reference)

Race, Race versus Ethnicity — online Encyclopedia of Philosophy (reference entry) — a reference-work entry; read only section 3, which sets out how philosophers tell race from ethnicity, and skip the later sections, which take up moral and political debates this course does not argue. (reading, 10–15 min)

Heads-up (links rot): these point to outside sites that occasionally move or rename pages. If a link ever fails, tell your instructor and use the reference above in the meantime.

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