Sixteenth Global Studies Conference

Abstract

The foundation of the Africana Studies discipline is the study of collective racial and ethnic identity formation within the African Diaspora. For more than two centuries, race in the American context has been fallaciously defined utilizing binary terms of Black and White without consideration of other possible equations. While recent DNA discoveries have proven race to be a social construct rather than biological fact, the categorization of people according to phenotypical characteristics persists and are generally dictated by governmental census definitions. As the world becomes culturally and socially more integrated, the binary structure of racial definitions in the United States has become obsolete. This fact however, creates a pedagogical challenge as most traditional college students enter the classroom with the binary paradigm firmly entrenched. This paper examines instructional methods that can assist American students in comprehending the myriad of understandings of race and ethnicity globally, and to reassess their discernment of a complex and ever-changing social construct that actually impacts their daily lives.