Immigration, Diversity and Multiculturalism in North America
Curriculum guideline
Classroom instruction will include both lectures and seminar discussions. Lectures will provide instruction on weekly topics with opportunities for student inquiry and discussion. Seminars will encourage active class participation in the analysis of assigned primary and secondary readings. Classroom instruction may also include student presentations on specific readings and/or topics, and other types of student-led activities. Classroom instruction may also include tutorials and workshops on transferrable skills, including research methods, academic citation practice, and presentation skills.
A sample course outline may include the following topics.
Note: Content may vary according to the instructor’s selection of topics.
- Introduction
- Indigenous Peoples and Migration in Early North America
- Settlers, Servants, and Slaves in Colonial North America
- Empires and Global Migrations During the Long Nineteenth Century
- Immigration, Nativism, and North American Expansionism
- Mass Migration and the “Immigration Problem”
- Ideologies of Race: Exclusion, Deportation, Eugenics, and Miscegenation
- World War II, “Enemy Aliens,” and the Politics of Resettlement
- Segregation, Integration, and Civil Rights Movements
- Paradigm and Policy: Melting Pot and Mosaic
- Immigrant Lives: Families, Gender and Sexuality
- Immigration Reform, Citizenship, Border Anxieties, and Global Economies
- Refugees and Asylum-Seekers
- Reparation, Reconciliation, and Public Memory
At the conclusion of the course, successful students will be able to demonstrate historical thinking skills, research skills, critical thinking skills and communication skills appropriate to the level of the course by:
1. Locating, examining, assessing, and evaluating a range of primary sources and secondary scholarly literature critically and analytically (reading history).
2. Constructing historical arguments, taking historical perspectives, and interpreting historical problems through different types of writing assignments of varying lengths (writing history).
3. Participating in active and informed historical debate independently and cooperatively through classroom discussion and presentation (discussing history).
4. Independently and cooperatively investigating the ways that history is created, preserved, and disseminated through public memory and commemoration, oral history, community engagement, and other forms of popular visual and written expressions about the past (applying history).
Assessment will be in accordance with the Douglas College student evaluation policy. Students may conduct research with human participants as part of their coursework in this class. Instructors for the course are responsible for ensuring that student research projects comply with College policies on ethical conduct for research involving humans.
Students will have opportunities to build and refine their research capacity and historical thinking skills through assessments appropriate to the level of the course. There will be at least three separate assessments, which may include a combination of midterm and final exams; research essays; primary document analysis assignments and essays; quizzes; map tests; in-class and online written assignments; seminar presentations; student assignment portfolios; group projects; creative projects; class participation.
The value of each assessment and evaluation, expressed as a percentage of the final grade, will be listed in the course outline distributed to students at the beginning of the term. Specific evaluation criteria will vary according to the instructor’s assessment of appropriate evaluation methods.
Note: This course is writing-intensive.
An example of one evaluation scheme:
Participation 15%
Seminar presentation and reading journal 20%
Primary document analyses 20%
Media analysis 10%
Research proposal and annotated bibliography 10%
Research essay 25%
Textbooks and Course Readers may be chosen from the following list, to be updated periodically.
An instructor’s custom Course Reader may be required. Additional online resources may also be assigned, and bibliographies of additional readings and links to specific resources may be provided in the course outline or online.
Daniels, Roger. Coming to America: A History of Immigration and Ethnicity in American Life. 2nd ed. New York: Harper Perennial, 2019.
Day, Richard F. Multiculturalism and the History of Canadian Diversity. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2000.
Epp, Marlene, and Franca Iacovetta. Sisters or Strangers: Immigrant, Ethnic, and Racialized Women in Canadian History. 2nd ed. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2016.
Gerber, David. American Immigration: A Very Short Introduction. New York: Oxford University Press, 2011.
Ngai, Mai, and Jon Gjerde. Major Problems in American Immigration History. 2nd ed. Boston: Wadsworth, 2011.
Kelley, Ninette. Making of a Mosaic: A History of Canadian Immigration Policy. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2010.
Knowles, Valerie. Strangers at our Gates: Canadian Immigration and Immigration Policy, 1540-2006. 4th ed. Toronto: Dundurn Press, 2016.
Nellis, Eric. Shaping the New World: African Slavery in the Americas, 1500-1888. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2013.
Omi, Michael, and Howard Winant. Racial Formation in the United States. 3rd ed. New York: Routledge, 2015.
One 1000 level course in History
Or the permission of the instructor