Are Textbooks Getting the Race Message Right?

Monday, February 8, 2010

OSU Social Science Seminar Series to address accuracy on Feb. 18.

(Feb. 8, 2010, STILLWATER, Okla.) – Kathleen J. Fitzgerald, an associate professor in sociology at Columbia College of Missouri, wants to know if today’s sociology textbooks are accurately portraying race and ethnicity.

Starting at 5 p.m. on Thursday, Feb. 18, Fitzgerald will lecture on “Teaching Race and White Privilege: Bringing History and Agency Back In” in Room 515 of Engineering North at Oklahoma State University.

Fitzgerald’s visit to the Stillwater campus is part of the two-day 2010 Sociology Graduate Student Association Research Symposium hosted by the OSU Sociology Graduate Student Association. Now in its 10th year, more than 200 students and faculty are expected to attend.

“Dr. Kathleen Fitzgerald’s research offers insight into the complex nature of race in a society that considers itself color-blind,” said Brant Farrar, a doctoral student in sociology at OSU who is coordinating the event. “Race is a dynamic issue that is relevant to a multitude of academic disciplines, teachers and anyone interested in social inequality.”

Fitzgerald has written and co-authored several books including Beyond White Ethnicity: Developing a Sociological Understanding of Native American Identity Reclamation. She is a visiting professor at Loyola University in New Orleans.

The Feb. 18 lecture is free and open to the public and is part of the Social Science Seminar Series in the College of Arts & Sciences. For more information, e- mail brant.farrar@okstate.edu or phone (405) 744-6104.

The OSU Department of Sociology is one of 24 departments in the College of Arts & Sciences.