Courses

ANTH B102 Introduction to Cultural Anthropology

Fall 2025, Spring 2026

This course explores the basic principles and methods of sociocultural anthropology. Sociocultural anthropology examines how many of the categories we assume to be "natural," such as kinship, gender, or race, are culturally and socially constructed. It examines how people's perceptions, beliefs, values, and actions are shaped by broader historical, economic, and political contexts. It is also a vital tool for understanding and critiquing imbalances of power in our contemporary world. Through a range of topically and geographically diverse course readings and films, and opportunities to practice ethnographic methodology, students will gain new analytical and methodological tools for understanding cultural difference, social organization, and social change.

Cross-Cultural Analysis (CC)

Counts Toward: Child and Family Studies; Gender Sexuality Studies.

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ANTH B213 Anthropology of Food

Not offered 2025-26

Food is part of the universal human experience. But everyday experiences of food also reveal much about human difference. What we eat is intimately connected with who we are, where we belong, and how we see the world. In this course, we will use a socio-cultural perspective to explore how food helps us form families, national and religious communities, and other groups. We will also consider how food may become a source of inequality, a political symbol, and a subject of social discord. Examining both practical and ideological meanings of food and taste, this course will address issues of identity, social difference, and cultural experience.

Cross-Cultural Analysis (CC)

Counts Toward: Child and Family Studies; Gender Sexuality Studies; International Studies; International Studies.

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ANTH B322 Anthropology of Bodies

Fall 2025

This course examines meanings and interpretations of bodies in anthropology. It explores anthropological theories and methods of studying the human body and social difference via a series of topics including the construction of the body in medicine, identity, race, gender, sexuality and as explored through cross-cultural comparison.  Bodies and their forms are intertwined in debates both in academia and in current affairs and politics. These concerns range from surveillance and movements of bodies, disappearance and erasure of some bodies and fortification of others, to biological and technological modification of individual bodies that arise in moral and political debates and action. Although "the body" is frequently assumed to be "natural," indeed it appears unstable and destabilizing, especially in particular times and in particular places. We will discuss, for instance the body as a focus of the biomedical gaze, as commodity, in creative expression, in relations to non-human primates, across the age spectrum, and in historical political, economic, and colonial and post-colonial regimes, among other topics. Prerequisite: Sophomore standing and higher.

Power, Inequity, and Justice (PIJ)

Counts Toward: Child and Family Studies; Gender Sexuality Studies; Health Studies; Health Studies.

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ANTH B357 Narratives of Illness, Healing, and Medicine

Spring 2026

This course will explore the construction of narratives around illness, healing, and medicine cross-culturally and across a variety of media including through graphic novels, video drama series, primary source diaries, audio accounts, and anthropological texts. Illness narratives have figured prominently in the study and practice of medical anthropology, and increasingly in the teaching of medicine. We will ask: What is the role of illness narratives in the healing process for patients, healers, and caregivers in cross-cultural comparison? How can illness narratives destabilize dominant discourses, and provide an avenue of expression for those who are unable to easily speak or be heard, particularly in biomedical contexts? Who gets to speak, in what ways, and who remains unheard? What does it mean to tell a story of illness? What roles do illness stories play in illuminating and complicating understandings of illness, disability, trauma, and caregiving? How do illness narratives relate to suffering, hope, and healing, and how they differ for chronic or terminal illness? What do they tell us about making and remaking the self? Students will have the opportunity to explore frameworks and cross-cultural experiences through media beyond standard text. Prerequisite: Sophomore-standing or above.

Writing Attentive

Course does not meet an Approach

Counts Toward: Child and Family Studies; Health Studies.

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EDUC B200 Community Learning Collaborative: Practicing Partnership

Spring 2026

One of the four entry-point options for student majoring or minoring in Education Studies, this course is open to students exploring an interest in educational practice, theory, research, and policy. The course asks how myriad people, groups, and fields have defined the purpose of education, and considers the implications of conflicting definitions for generating new, more just, and more inclusive modes of "doing school" informed by community-based as well as academic streams of educational practice. In collaboration with practicing educators, students learn practical and philosophical approaches to experiential, community-engaged learning across individual relationships and organizational contexts. Fieldwork in an area school or organization required

Writing Attentive

Cross-Cultural Analysis (CC)

Power, Inequity, and Justice (PIJ)

Counts Toward: Africana Studies; Child and Family Studies.

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EDUC B275 Emergent Multilingual Learners in U.S. Schools

Fall 2025

This course, offered as both an elective as well as a course required for students pursuing secondary teaching certification in Pennsylvania through the Bi-Co Education Program, operates from a heteroglossic and culturally and linguistically sustaining stance that has four intersecting aims. First, the course seeks to support students in a critical self-examination of the ways that language has shaped their lives and learning, particularly in the context of racism, linguicism, ethno- and euro-centrism, marginalization and austerity in schools and society. Second, students investigate the ways that both historical and contemporary educational policy concerning the education of EMLLs in the United States has operated from a monoglossic orientation that has limited programmatic and pedagogical options within the classroom to those that fail to address the lived realities and needs of this growing population of students. Third, students collaboratively research and present their findings on heteroglossic classroom language practices that, in contrast to those above, respect and leverage students' community cultural wealth and full linguistic repertoires. Fourth, students, drawing upon these findings as well as research on multiple language and literacy acquisition, hone their skills as curriculum designers and pedagogues, working to address EMLLs' diverse strengths and needs in mainstream classrooms and other educational settings. All four aims are bolstered by weekly fieldwork opportunities to learn with and from EMLLs and their educators in the Philadelphia area. Lottery Preference(s): 1. EDUC majors and Certification students; 2. EDUC minors; 3. then by seniority

Cross-Cultural Analysis (CC)

Power, Inequity, and Justice (PIJ)

Counts Toward: Child and Family Studies; Peace Justice and Human Rights.

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EDUC B301 Curriculum and Pedagogy Seminar

Fall 2025

A consideration of theoretical and applied issues related to effective curriculum design, pedagogical approaches and related issues of teaching and learning. Fieldwork is required. Enrollment is limited to 15 with priority given first to students pursuing certification and second to seniors planning to teach.

Writing Intensive

Counts Toward: Child and Family Studies; Praxis Program.

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ENGL B270 American Girl: Childhood in U.S. Literatures, 1690-1935

Section 001 (Spring 2026): Childhood in US Literatures, 1690-1935

Spring 2026

Long before the "American Girl" dolls debuted in 1986, the "girl" (and what is a "girl?") served as a particularly potent figure of cultural fantasy. The vexed and contradictory question of what it means to be "American" has been played out over and over again through fictions of girlhood. This course looks at those fictions, from the 1770s through the 1910s - from the founding of the nation to suffrage. While real girls and women suffered and disappeared behind the laws of coverture and enslavement, fictional girls had gripping adventures in the pages of American novels, adventures that insisted that the growing up of a female child was the best story for tracing what it means to be free, to be good, to be self-determining. Focusing on questions of race, gender and sexuality, we will read, among other texts, Rowson's Charlotte Temple, Sedgwick's Hope Leslie, Southworth's The Hidden Hand, Jacobs' Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl, Alcott's Little Women, and Zitkala-Sa's Impressions of an Indian Childhood.

Critical Interpretation (CI)

Counts Toward: Child and Family Studies; Gender Sexuality Studies.

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PSYC B203 Educational Psychology

Spring 2026

Topics in the psychology of human cognitive, social, and affective behavior are examined and related to educational practice. Issues covered include learning theories, memory, attention, thinking, motivation, social/emotional issues in adolescence, and assessment/learning disabilities. This course provides a Praxis Level II opportunity. Classroom observation is required. Prerequisite: PSYC B105 (Introductory Psychology)

Course does not meet an Approach

Counts Toward: Child and Family Studies; Praxis Program.

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PSYC B209 Clinical Psychology

Fall 2025, Spring 2026

This course examines the experience, origins and consequences of psychological difficulties and problems. Among the questions we will explore are: What do we mean by abnormal behavior or psychopathology? What are the strengths and limitations of the ways in which psychopathology is assessed and classified? What are the major forms of psychopathology? How do psychologists study and treat psychopathology? How is psychopathology experienced by individuals? What causes psychological difficulties and what are their consequences? How do we integrate social, biological and psychological perspectives on the causes of psychopathology? Do psychological treatments (therapies) work? How do we study the effectiveness of psychology treatments? Prerequisite: Introductory Psychology (PSYC B105 or H100). Please note that this course was previously known as "Abnormal Psychology" and has now been renamed "Clinical Psychology" and can not be repeated for credit.

Course does not meet an Approach

Power, Inequity, and Justice (PIJ)

Counts Toward: Child and Family Studies; Health Studies; Health Studies.

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PSYC B211 Lifespan Development

Spring 2026

A topical survey of psychological development across the lifespan, focusing on the interaction of personal and environmental factors in the ontogeny of perception, language, cognition, and social interactions within the family and with peers. Topics include developmental theories; infant perception; attachment; language development; theory of mind; memory development; peer relations and the family as contexts of development; identity and the adolescent transition; adult personality; cognition in late adulthood; and dying with dignity. Prerequisite: PSYC B105 or PSYC H100. Interested students can take this course or PSYC B206, but not both

Course does not meet an Approach

Counts Toward: Child and Family Studies.

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PSYC B215 Thorne School Practicum: Bridging Research and Practice

Spring 2026

This is a 1-credit Praxis II course that requires 3 hours of weekly fieldwork in any of the five Phebe Anna Thorne School programs (Nearly 3s, Younger and Older Preschool classes, Language Enrichment Preschool Program, Kindergarten). In addition to their fieldwork, students will meet as a group once each week with the course instructor. This praxis course is distinguished by dynamic interaction between hands-on fieldwork and collaborative in-class academic learning. Students will integrate their fieldwork experiences with literature on child development and early childhood education, including scholarly evidence that underpins the Thorne School's commitment to play-based, social-emotional learning. The course also provides an opportunity for students to learn from each other and deepen their understanding of development in early childhood, as they will share their diverse experiences from the five different Thorne School programs serving children from ages 2 to 6.

Course does not meet an Approach

Counts Toward: Child and Family Studies; Praxis Program.

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PSYC B322 Everyday Coping Across Culture

Fall 2025

How do people from different cultural backgrounds cope with stress, regulate emotions, and navigate everyday conflicts? This course explores the diverse strategies individuals use to manage challenges outside of clinical settings, with a particular focus on the role of social support-such as seeking advice, receiving emotional support, and engaging in acts of sacrifice. We will examine how these coping strategies vary across cultures and contexts, shaping well-being and interpersonal relationships. Children develop coping skills in both home and school settings, learning how to manage stress, regulate emotions, and navigate social interactions. Parents, teachers, and other socializing agents play a crucial role in this process by instilling moral values, cultural norms, and effective emotion regulation strategies. Students will engage with empirical, peer-reviewed journal articles, learning to integrate findings, critically analyze research, and generate new questions. Prerequisite: Research Methods and Statistics (PSYC B205 or PSYC H200) and either PSYC 224 (Cultural Psychology), PSYC B211 (Lifespan Development) or PSYC 208 (Social Psychology).

Writing Intensive

Counts Toward: Child and Family Studies.

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PSYC B327 Adolescent Development

Spring 2026

Is adolescence a biologically distinct stage of life, or a social "holding ground" invented by modern culture for young people unready or unwilling to assume the responsibilities of adulthood? Are adolescents destined to make risky decisions because of their underdeveloped brains? At what age should they be held accountable as adults in a court of law? This course will explore these and other questions about the biological, social, and legal forces that define the boundaries and shape the experience of adolescents growing up in the modern world. Students will learn about: (1) historical changes in understanding and treatment of adolescents; (2) puberty-related biological changes marking the beginning of adolescence; (3) brain, behavioral, cognitive, and social development during adolescence; and (4) contemporary debates regarding age of adult maturity, and their implications for law and policy. Prerequisite: PSYC B206 (Developmental Psychology) or PSYC B211 (Lifespan Development) or permission or instructor. PSYC B205 is recommended.

Counts Toward: Child and Family Studies; Health Studies; Neuroscience.

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PSYC B344 Early Childhood Experiences & Mental Health

Not offered 2025-26

Development represents a unique period during which the brain shows enhanced plasticity, the important ability to adapt and change in response to experiences. During development, the brain may be especially vulnerable to the impacts of harmful experiences (e.g., neglect or exposure to toxins) and also especially responsive to the effects of positive factors (e.g., community resilience or clinical interventions). This seminar will explore how childhood experiences "get under the skin," shaping neurobiological systems and exerting lasting effects on mental health and well-being. We will examine theoretical models of how early experiences shape development, considering the proposed mechanisms by which different features of childhood environments could shape psychological risk and resilience. We will evaluate the scientific evidence for these models and then apply this knowledge to consider what strategies for intervention-- at the level of the child, family, and society-- could help reduce psychopathology and promote well-being. There is no textbook required for this course. We will read, critically evaluate, and discuss empirical journal articles and explore the implications of this scientific literature for public policy. Prerequisites: PSYC B209 or PSYC B206 or PSYC B218 or permission from instructor; PSYC B205 highly recommended

Counts Toward: Child and Family Studies; Health Studies; Neuroscience.

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SOCL B201 The Study of Gender in Society

Fall 2025

The definition of male and female social roles and sociological approaches to the study of gender in the United States, with attention to gender in the economy and work place, the division of labor in families and households, and analysis of class and ethnic differences in gender roles. Of particular interest in this course is the comparative exploration of the experiences of women of color in the United States.

Cross-Cultural Analysis (CC)

Counts Toward: Child and Family Studies; Gender Sexuality Studies.

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SOCL B225 Women in Society

Spring 2026

In 2015, the world's female population was 49.6 percent of the total global population of 7.3 billion. According to the United Nations, in absolute terms, there were 61,591,853 more men than women. Yet, at the global scale, 124 countries have more women than men. A great majority of these countries are located in what scholars have recently been referring to as the Global South - those countries known previously as developing countries. Although women outnumber their male counterparts in many Global South countries, however, these women endure difficulties that have worsened rather than improving. What social structures determine this gender inequality in general and that of women of color in particular? What are the main challenges women in the Global South face? How do these challenges differ based on nationality, class, ethnicity, skin color, gender identity, and other axes of oppression? What strategies have these women developed to cope with the wide variety of challenges they contend with on a daily basis? These are some of the major questions that we will explore together in this class. In this course, the Global South does not refer exclusively to a geographical location, but rather to a set of institutional structures that generate disadvantages for all individuals and particularly for women and other minorities, regardless their geographical location in the world. In other words, a significant segment of the Global North's population lives under the same precarious conditions that are commonly believed as exclusive to the Global South. Simultaneously, there is a Global North embedded in the Global South as well. In this context, we will see that the geographical division between the North and the South becomes futile when we seek to understand the dynamics of the "Western-centric/Christian-centric capitalist/patriarchal modern/colonial world-system" (Grosfoguel, 2012). In the first part of the course, we will establish the theoretical foundations that will guide us throughout the rest of the semester. We will then turn to a wide variety of case studies where we will examine, for instance, the contemporary global division of labor, gendered violence in the form of feminicides, international migration, and global tourism. The course's final thematic section will be devoted to learning from the different feminisms (e.g. community feminism) emerging out of the Global South as well as the research done in that region and its contribution to the development of a broader gender studies scholarship. In particular, we will pay close attention to resistance, solidarity, and social movements led by women. Examples will be drawn from Latin America, the Caribbean, the US, Asia, and Africa.

Cross-Cultural Analysis (CC)

Counts Toward: Africana Studies; Child and Family Studies; Gender Sexuality Studies; Latin American Iberian Latinx.

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SOCL B232 A Sociological Journey to Immigrant Communities in Philly

Spring 2026

This course will use the lenses of sociology to critically and comparatively examine various immigrant communities living in greater Philadelphia. It will expose students to the complex historical, economic, political, and social factors influencing (im)migration, as well as how migrants and the children of immigrants develop their sense of belonging and their homemaking practices in the new host society. In this course, we will probe questions of belonging, identity, homemaking, citizenship, transnationalism, and ethnic entrepreneurship and how individuals, families, and communities are transformed locally and across borders through the process of migration. This course also seeks to interrogate how once in a new country, immigrant communities not only develop a sense of belonging but also how they reconfigure their own identities while they transform the social, physical, and cultural milieus of their new communities of arrival. To achieve these ends, this course will engage in a multidisciplinary approach consisting of materials drawn from such disciplines as cultural studies, anthropology, history, migration studies, and sociology to examine distinct immigrant communities that have arrived in Philadelphia over the past 100 years. Although this course will also cover the histories of migrant communities arriving in the area in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, a greater part of the course will focus on recent migrant communities, mainly from Africa, Asia, Latin America, and the Caribbean and arriving in the area of South Philadelphia. A special focus will be on the Mexican American migrant community that stands out among those newly arrived migrant communities.

Cross-Cultural Analysis (CC)

Counts Toward: Child and Family Studies; Growth and Structure of Cities; Latin American Iberian Latinx.

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