Exploring Home Ownership, Residential Segregation, and the Growing Racial Wealth Gap

Abstract

On August 28, 1963, Martin Luther King, Jr. delivered the infamous "I Have a Dream Speech" in which he reflected upon the state of black America one hundred years after slavery: "…the life of the Negro is still badly crippled by the manacles of segregation…the Negro lives on a lonely island of poverty in the midst of a vast ocean of material prosperity."...

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Details

Subject Area(s):

Stratification/Mobility

Resource Type(s):

Assignment, PowerPoint

Class Level(s):

Any Level

Class Size(s):

Any

Usage Notes

This assignment involves a multi-stage process which takes approximately three weeks (i.e., from the introduction to the topic through finishing the paper) and builds the students’ understanding incrementally. This assignment is designed for introductory courses, however, it would be appropriate for higher level sociology courses in social stratification...

Learning Goals and Assessments

Learning Goal(s):

1. 1. To develop critical thinking skills about how race still matters.
2. 2. To improve writing skills and the ability to synthesize some of the historical practices and continuing trends in homeownership and residential segregation which have contributed to the growing racial wealth gap.
3. 3. To understand how white privilege affects wealth attainment and to think creatively about how to lessen the disparities between white and black wealth through innovative social policy that addresses home ownership and residential segregation.

Goal Assessment(s):

1. 1. Using discussion-based classroom activities and their own writing in a graded paper, students exhibit a thoughtful engagement with complex issues affecting the racial wealth gap.
2. 2. In a graded paper, students’ writing demonstrates organization and clarity while reviewing some of the historical policies and practices in homeownership and residential segregation that have helped to create the wealth gap between black and whites.
3. 3. Responding to a personal inventory of their families’ patterns of wealth building, students examine racial privilege and propose creative policy solutions to decrease the racial wealth gap, focusing on home ownership and residential segregation.