Comparative Race and Ethnicity Minor

Minor in Comparative Race and Ethnicity 

Advisor for 2025-26:  Peggy Levitt and Markella Rutherford

The interdisciplinary Minor in Comparative Race and Ethnicity examines how power dynamics, operating across time, space, and scales of social experience, shape the categories of race and ethnicity. Approaching racial and ethnic categories as socially constructed, historically situated, and contextually dependent, this minor is designed to engage students in comparative study in two key ways: (1) students will be equipped to examine and analyze racial/ethnic dynamics across and between national borders and to compare different racial and ethnic regimes, and (2) students will learn to understand race/ethnicity from different disciplinary perspectives, drawing from both the social sciences and the humanities. This minor offers a distinctly global approach to race and ethnicity that is intended to complement U.S.-based critical ethnic studies and other area studies approaches (e.g., American Studies, Africana Studies). It is fitting for any student interested in analyzing the comparative and transnational dimensions of race and ethnicity in combination with the study of race and ethnicity in the United States.

Goals for the Minor in Comparative Race and Ethnicity

The minor in comparative race and ethnicity seeks to educate students to:

• Understand the social construction of race and ethnicity
• Introduce students to a variety of disciplinary approaches to understanding and analyzing race and ethnicity
• Compare processes of racialization across history and geography
• Understand ethnic and racial conflicts in comparative context
• Critically analyze the exercise of power and domination, as well as resistance movements
• Examine how global systems of economic and political power, colonialism, and transnational migration shape race and ethnicity in various places
• Consider the intersections of race and ethnicity with gender, nation, and class in a global context   

Requirements for the Minor in Comparative Race and Ethnicity

The minor in comparative race and ethnicity consists of five units:

1. At least two of the following courses:  

AFR 215 Unpacking Blackness, Ethnicity and Identity in the African Diaspora

ANTH 214 Race and Human Variation

ANTH 254/WGST 254 - The Biology of Human Difference

ENG 291 What Is Racial Difference?

SOC 209 Social Inequality: Class, Race, and Gender

SOC 246/AMST 246 Salsa and Ketchup: How Immigration is Changing the U.S.

SOC 251/AMST 251 Racial Regimes in the United States and Beyond

2. Three electives from the list of courses toward the minor. At least one elective must be at the 300-level.

3. At least one course taken for the minor must be in Sociology.

Students who wish to complete a Minor in Comparative Race and Ethnicity should contact the minor advisor(s). Courses for the minor will be selected in consultation with the minor advisor and should represent both social science and humanities perspectives. Students will be strongly encouraged to look comparatively rather than focusing on a specific region.  

The Minor is open to students in any major at the College. Sociology majors can complete the Comparative Race and Ethnicity minor so long as no single course counts toward both the major and the minor.

Courses for Credit Toward the Minor in Comparative Race and Ethnicity

The following courses may be counted as electives for the Minor in Comparative Race and Ethnicity. Note that some 200- and 300-level courses have prerequisites that do not count toward the Minor. Students wishing to count a non-Wellesley course or a Wellesley course not listed below may petition the minor advisors. For example, some departments offer advanced courses with rotating topics; such courses may be considered individually based on the topic offered in a given year.