OSU Course Catalogue Description: An introduction to families with application to personal life. Focuses on diversity.

This course covers multiple domains of life for contemporary families in the US, including parenting, family policy, romantic partnerships, divorce & relationship dissolution, and work & family balance. It is my hope that this class offers a glimpse into the myriad of family configurations, and the ways in which families are resilient.

This Course Is Part of the OSU Baccalaureate Core

As a Difference, Power and Discrimination (DPD) course, we will focus on the unequal distribution of social, economic, and political power in the United States and how that is sustained through a variety of individual beliefs and institutional practices. These beliefs and practices have tended to obscure the origins and operations of social discrimination such that this unequal power distribution is often viewed as the natural order. The DPD requirement engages students in the intellectual examination of the complexity of the structures, systems, and ideologies that sustain discrimination and the unequal distribution of power and resources in society. Such examination will enhance meaningful democratic participation in our diverse university community and our increasingly multicultural U.S. society.

Student Learning Outcomes (DPD)

Upon completion of HDFS 201, students will be able to:

1)   Explain how difference is socially constructed. The formal assessment of this DPD Core Learning Outcome (CLO) is through weekly quizzes, class discussions, and the Final Exam. For example, quiz question ask students to identify the differences between race and ethnicity.

2)   Using historical and contemporary examples, describe how perceived differences, combined with unequal distribution of power across economic, social, and political institutions, result in discrimination. This DPD CLO is address through class discussions, online assignment, quiz questions, and Final Exam. For example, an online assignment requires students how institutional discrimination based on gender and sexual orientation adversely affects family formation among the LGBTQ community.

3)   Analyze ways in which the interactions of social categories, such as race, ethnicity, social class, gender, religion, sexual orientation, disability, and age, are related to difference, power, and discrimination in the United States. This DPD CLO is addressed through class discussions, weekly quizzes, and the Final Exam. For example, question on the Final Exam asks students to identify ways in which historical and institutional racism has contributed to higher rates of poverty for African American households.

Student Learning Outcomes (HDFS 201)

1.    Understand how individual characteristics and contextual factors interact to contribute to development over time. These individual characteristics and contextual factors include age, race, ethnicity, sex, gender, sexual orientation, social class, disability, family structure and dynamics, parent-child relationships, childcare, workplace, peers, neighborhoods, and churches and other organizations.

2.    Recognize the impact of historical and environmental influences on individual and familial experiences over time, with a focus on the social environment.

3.    Appreciate diversity (age, race, ethnicity, sex, gender, social class, sexual orientation) in individuals and understand how it is related to family structure and processes.

Program Competencies in Human Development and Family Sciences

Upon satisfactory completion of the degree in Human Development and Family Sciences, the students will have met the program competencies.

This course meets 3 hours per week for lecture, and combines approximately 90 total hours of instruction, online activities, and assignments for 3 credits.. Each credit hour translates to 3 hours of independent studying.

In class, you will meet 1.5 hours, twice per week, where you will engage in lecture, Vevox polls, and class discussion with your class and instructor. 

Online in Canvas, you will interact with the course content, your peers, and your instructor, where you will complete assignments, assessments, and access additional learning materials.

This course utilizes a variety of methods to deliver course content, including readings, online lectures in the form of video presentations, videos, quizzes, discussion forums, online assignments, article reviews, and a final exam. (This class does NOT have a midterm exam.) Each area of assessment is briefly described below. More specific details are available on Canvas.