Located in one of the country's most multicultural cities, the University of Southern California offers a focused doctoral program in Ethnicity on its Los Angeles campus. USC's Department of American Studies and Ethnicity provides its students with a multidisciplinary degree that is deeply grounded in research methodology and immersion in a foreign language. PhD candidates focus their thesis on either Asian American, Latino, African American, or Ethnic Studies and emerge with the tools to research the effects of diversity on society.
Housed in the University of Nebraska-Lincoln's Institute for Ethnic Studies, UNL's Ethnic Studies PhD program allows students to study African American, Asian American, Latino and Native American culture and society. Each faculty member in the graduate department focuses her work on both Ethnic Studies and another academic discipline, such as Literature, Modern Languages or Political Science. This dual perspective allows doctoral students from UNL to receive a well-rounded perspective on the full impact of ethnicity in America.
Founded in 1984, the University of California-Berkeley's Department of Ethnic Studies is a small PhD program that nevertheless offers its students the opportunity to study a full range of ethnic groups. Each doctoral candidate focuses on the methods and critical theories behind Ethnic Studies before moving onto gaining a deep knowledge in a chosen research area. Fields that range from African and African American Studies to Euroamerican Constructions of Whiteness are available to students who choose UCB for their graduate education.
Though it only began in 2009, the University of California-Riverside's PhD program in Ethnic Studies already provides its students with a full breadth of coursework. Graduate students at UCR's Department of Ethnic Studies can concentrate in three areas: Theories of Race and Power, Cultural Politics and Production, and The State, Law and Social Transformation. Students are expected to complete their doctoral degree in six years. To pay for their education, students can compete for graduate fellowships or serve as Teaching Assistants in the department.