Race: The Power of an Illusion
I recently taught a course for primary and secondary school teachers that spent one full day on gender and one day on race. We started the day on race by watching the first of the three part PBS series "Race: The Power of an Illusion". I also drew on the materials available on the series website: http://www.pbs.org/race/000_General/000_00-Home.htm
including the teaching tool "The Empirical Challenges of Racial Classification" under "For teachers" at the bottom of the top page.
The film's narrative focuses on a group of high school students who appear to be of different races, and follows them as they learn more about their genome, finding by the end that they are not genetically "like" the others in the group of the same apparent race. It also talks a bit about racial stereotypes (especially in sports). The film draws on clips of Richard Lowentin, Stephen Jay Gould, Evelynn Hammonds and others to discuss the history of race science and ends by talking about race as a social category. The students found it very powerful and for most of them it was revolutionary.
The "sorting people" interactive part of the series website is also interesting: http://www.pbs.org/race/002_SortingPeople/002_00-home.htm
Sally Haslanger