Portland Community College | Portland, Oregon

Social Inquiry and Analysis

Students completing an associate degree at Portland Community College will be able to apply methods of inquiry and analysis to examine social contexts and the diversity of human thought and experience.

General education philosophy statement

According to the PCC General Education Philosophy Statement, PCC students will have an “appreciation of history both from a global perspective and a personal perspective, including awareness of the role played by gender and by various cultures.” In doing so, the Philosophy Statement not only explicitly references the field of history, but also accurately characterizes the core of what students learn in history classes. Each PCC history course requires students to situate the subject of the class in its broader international and transnational environment. All history courses thus explore themes such as migration, globalization, formal and informal international relations, and transnational intellectual and religious movements. At the same time, students also develop an appreciation of history from a personal perspective by creating their own interpretations of the past through the analysis of primary-and-secondary source documents. Finally, history classes at PCC also pay particular attention to the role of gender and culture. Students examine the ways that often-rapidly shifting constructions of gender have both reflected and impelled critical social changes in different societies, and they explore how ethnic, linguistic, and religious diversity has shaped—and been shaped by—historical development.

The History of the Middle East clearly addresses this vital component of the PCC General Education Philosophy Statement. The course examines the Middle East’s history from a global perspective by exploring its cultural and economic relations with regions such as Africa and South Asia as well as its longstanding and, most importantly, by examining in detail its complex relationship with the West. The class also calls on students to develop a personal understanding of the Middle East’s development by having them create their own interpretation of the region’s history through the analysis of primary-and secondary source documents. The course also fosters an appreciation of the role that gender and culture played in shaping the region’s development by having students examine the ways in which women gained important, emancipatory legal rights as a result of the emergence of Islam in the early seventh century only to see those newfound freedoms evaporate with the reassertion of patriarchy in the eighth and ninth centuries. Finally, the class fosters an awareness of the part that culture has played in the development of the Middle East by examining the emergence of diverse religions traditions such as Sunnism, Shiism, and the Alawite ethnoreligious group.