Sociology Race Ethnicity and Social Change Unit Print & Digital

Invite your students to dive into the sociological topics of race and ethnicity and explore this not-often-discussed topic that is central to society.

This unit also investigates the agents of social change by exploring civil rights efforts both in the past and modern times in this unit built for your high school Sociology course.

Students will master key sociological concepts like

• the difference between race and ethnicity; bias, prejudice, and discrimination
• examples of racial disparity across social institutions in America
• code-switching, its evolution, and role in Black and Latino communities
• agents of social change and their role in the Civil Rights and Black Lives Matter movements

Challenge your students to look at race and ethnicity from a historical, demographical, and personal level with this inquiry-driven, standards-aligned unit that asks, "How has society defined race?"

All student materials come in print-and-go PDF and editable Google files!

************************************

Greatness is recognizing and combatting the assumptions made about different people.

The strength of an inquiry unit like this is your ability to immediately make abstract concepts into intriguing and relevant lessons: each engaging activity builds towards the unit driving question with its own focused question and is based on issues that are real-world and personal to students.

This unit can be done well in 3-4 weeks and aligns standards of various states and the National Sociological Association.

Included in this Race, Ethnicity, & Social Change unit:

Overview Materials

• Teacher Overview with general notes, links, standards, and a pacing guide
• Daily Lesson Plans with step-by-step instructions and lesson takeaway notes
• Detailed Answer Keys for each activity
• Student Unit Review and Skills handouts with self-checking questions and I Can statements
• Student Unit Notes sheet for building deep and nuanced mastery of concepts over the course of the unit
• Editable Parent Permission form to inform families about sensitive topics that are covered in this unit
• Editable Case Study template to customize for any news source you want to incorporate

Student Activities

• Unit Hook: explore the US Census questions about race and ethnicity as well as current demographic numbers
• 2 Crash Course Guided Notes: provide an overview of concepts with these videos and embedded "pause and talk" real-world application tasks (perfect lecture or textbook replacement or for a flipped classroom experience)
• Code-Switching: reflect on the reasons for and effects of this language phenomenon and explore it in both Black and Latino communities
• Race & College Admissions: explore how perceptions about race impact Asian American college applicants
• White People: watch this engaging MTV documentary on race relations that takes a very one-to-one personal approach to how we interact
• Racial Disparity: examine a wide variety of charts and graphs to see in stark numbers how various racial groups compare across health, income, and other social measures
• Agents of Social Change: learn and brainstorm about these 5 agents that create people to change in a stations activity
• Social Change Case Study: investigate and discuss the events that led to and became the catalyst for the Civil Rights Movement of the 1960s as well as the resulting changes that were made to American society
• George Floyd's Impact: research the underlying and catalyst events as well as the long list of resulting changes that came from this recent tragic event
• Short Answer Assessment: succinctly assess students' mastery of concepts and application to the real world and their own lives

Lecture Kit (BONUS!)

• 80-Slide Deck: introduce concepts with images and real-life examples; broken into four 30-45-minute lectures to deliver throughout unit
• Guided Notes & Exit Tickets: support and assess learning with these no-prep tools
• Everything is provided in PowerPoint & Google files and fully editable

By the end of this unit, your students will be able to:

• Articulate their deeper understanding of race and ethnicity
• Describe key components of discrimination, including bias, individual and institutional racism, and code-switching
• Analyze and evaluate a variety of news media articles, images, and statistical data
• Investigate, question, and discuss past and current social issues
• Collaborate to answer nuanced questions
• Apply theoretical concepts to real-life situations
• Reflect on sociological concepts in own life

Explore the rest of this engaging curriculum

• Foundations of Sociology
• Culture and Subcultures
• Socialization & Social Development
• Social Groups & Interactions
• Gender Development & Issues
• Social Status & Stratification

Or, get the full Sociology course bundle & save!

************************************

What Other Soc Teachers Are Saying

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ As a first-year teacher of 12th-grade Sociology, this resource was very beneficial! Students were highly engaged and the lessons were easy to incorporate. The PowerPoint lectures and notes were also very well done. – Gretchen D.

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ The content and activities are AMAZING! My students are so much more engaged in the lessons and discussions and are able to really understand the sociological concepts. - Andrea J.

************************************

Your FAQs Answered

I've never taken a Soc class! Will this help ME learn all this? This unit is built for you with step-by-step daily lesson plans, detailed answer keys, and lecture kits with slide-by-slide scripts.

I don't have any textbooks-- is this tied to one? Nope :) The included lecture kit, Crash Course video guide notes, and links to open-source textbooks give you 3 options for delivering content, depending on your style.

What if my district bans talking about certain sensitive topics? No worries! There are more than enough activities to let you pick and choose. When sensitive issues are touched on, detailed notes are included to assist you. Also, know all student activities are editable.

Can I edit things? Yes! All student materials come in editable Google file format. The printable PDF option is not.

Will this work with my LMS? It should! Your LMS should let you attach Google files or insert forced copy links of them. You can also easily download any Google Doc or Slide file to Microsoft. If you want to create assignments natively in your LMS, you can copy and paste text from the editable Google files. The PDF file is secured and not intended for LMS use.

How is an inquiry unit different from a regular one? An inquiry unit opens with a single wonder-inducing question to focus your whole unit and tie back to each activity. Connecting learning back and forth this way makes learning "stickier" and more relevant for students.

************************************

This listing is for one license for regular, non-commercial classroom use by a single teacher only. Commercial use like online teaching (ex. Outschool) or sharing with other teachers (ex. shared drive, in a Facebook group, in a professional development training) is strictly prohibited.

By purchasing a license to this resource, you have access to all future updates at no cost, available under “My Purchases." Multiple and transferable licenses are available for purchase. PDF files are uneditable, other files have editing abilities, unless otherwise stated. All files are protected under federal copyright laws.

To request a complete terms of use prior to purchase or if you have any questions about this resource, please leave a question below under Product Q&A.