This course is designed to give both undergraduates and graduate students an opportunity to:
• Understand how our interpretations of race, ethnicity, and family are sustained and changed through communication.
• Identify family communication patterns, behaviors, and attitudes that shape our understanding of race and ethnicity.
• Identify and understand how race and ethnicity impact social structures around us, especially the family.
• Understand different forms of family and ethnic-racial diversity in the United States.

Introduction
  Defining Family Communication and models of family
  Wholistic Perspectives on African American Families Theory 
  and Methods in Family
  African Heritage of African American Families and a Just 
  Society
  Western World View
  African Philosophy and cosmology
  Harmonizing and Unifying the warring souls affecrtion, 
  intimacy, and conflict  Male-female equality and parallel 
  complementary empowerment power, control, and decision making
  Erosion of balanced male-female principle through slavery, 
  colonalism, neocolonialism and internal colonialism
  African American marriages
  Communication, marriage types anfd marital satisfaction
  Interracial marriages
  Communication in various family forms (stepfamilies, 
  cohabiting, homosexual)
  Strengthening and repairing family relationships

“Academic honesty is – defined broadly and simply – the 
performance of all academic work without cheating, lying, 
stealing, or receiving assistance from any other person or 
using any source of information not appropriately authorized or 
attributed” (From the Preamble to “A Culture of Honesty”). The 
University, the Department of Communication Studies, and I 
personally take academic honesty very seriously. Every student 
at the University of Georgia should be familiar with the 
booklet, “A Culture of Honesty: Policies and Procedures on 
Academic Dishonesty.” If you are not, please obtain one of 
these booklets and read it carefully. This document has a 
thorough presentation of four types of academic dishonesty, 
including plagiarism, unauthorized assistance, lying/tampering, 
and theft, as well as the procedures that are in place to 
adjudicate alleged incidents of academic dishonesty. The 
policies and procedures described in “A Culture of Honesty” 
will be strictly followed. All academic work must meet the 
standards contained in “A Culture of Honesty.” Students are 
responsible for informing themselves about those standards 
before performing any academic work. More detailed information 
about academic honesty can be found at 
http://www.uga.edu/ovpi/honesty/acadhon.htm.