Houses, Schools, and Prisons

3 Credits · Level: Undergraduate

This interdisciplinary course examines how housing, education, and incarceration serve as key sites for the production of racial and economic inequality in American life. Drawing on ethnic studies, history, sociology, and geography, we will explore the deep roots of property, discipline, and punishment in US culture and how they manifest in the urban present. In the final portion of the course, we will consider how communities of color have struggled to secure access to dignified housing and good schools while challenging multiple forms of criminalization. With gratitude to Dr. Perla Guerrero, Associate Professor of American Studies and U.S. Latina/o Studies at the University of Maryland - College Park, who first developed and taught an iteration of this course.