Compelling Interest: Examining the Evidence on Racial Dynamics in Colleges and Universities - Softcover

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0804740356 ISBN 13: 9780804740357

Verlag: Stanford University Press, 2003

Inhaltsangabe

In recent years American colleges and universities have become the locus of impassioned debates about race-conscious social policies, as conflicting theories clash over the ways to distribute the advantages of higher education in a fair and just manner. Just below the surface of these policy debates lies a complex tangle of ideologies, histories, grievances, and emotions that interfere with a rational analysis of the issues involved. As never before, the need for empirical research on the significance of race in American society seems essential to solving the manifest problems of this highly politicized and emotionally charged aspect of American higher education.

The research evidence presented in this book has a direct relevance to those court cases that challenge race-conscious admission policies of colleges and universities. Though many questions still need to be addressed by future research, the empirical data collected to date makes it clear that affirmative action policies do work and are still very much needed in American higher education. This book also provides a framework for examining the evidence pertaining to issues of fairness, merit, and the benefits of diversity in an effort to assist courts and the public in organizing beliefs about race and opportunity.

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Über die Autorinnen und Autoren

Mitchell J. Chang is Assistant Professor of Higher Education and Organizational Change at the University of California, Los Angeles. Daria Witt was a Social Science Research Associate at the Center for Comparative Studies in Race and Ethnicity, Stanford University, and now teaches English as a second language in New York City. James Jones is Professor of Psychology at the University of Delaware. Kenji Hakuta is Vida Jacks Professor of Education at Stanford University.

Mitchell J. Chang is Assistant Professor of Higher Education and Organizational Change at the University of California, Los Angeles. Daria Witt was a Social Science Research Associate at the Center for Comparative Studies in Race and Ethnicity, Stanford University, and now teaches English as a second language in New York City. James Jones is Professor of Psychology at the University of Delaware. Kenji Hakuta is Vida Jacks Professor of Education at Stanford University.

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In recent years American colleges and universities have become the locus of impassioned debates about race-conscious social policies, as conflicting theories clash over the ways to distribute the advantages of higher education in a fair and just manner. Just below the surface of these policy debates lies a complex tangle of ideologies, histories, grievances, and emotions that interfere with a rational analysis of the issues involved. As never before, the need for empirical research on the significance of race in American society seems essential to solving the manifest problems of this highly politicized and emotionally charged aspect of American higher education.
The research evidence presented in this book has a direct relevance to those court cases that challenge race-conscious admission policies of colleges and universities. Though many questions still need to be addressed by future research, the empirical data collected to date makes it clear that affirmative action policies do work and are still very much needed in American higher education. This book also provides a framework for examining the evidence pertaining to issues of fairness, merit, and the benefits of diversity in an effort to assist courts and the public in organizing beliefs about race and opportunity.

Aus dem Klappentext

In recent years American colleges and universities have become the locus of impassioned debates about race-conscious social policies, as conflicting theories clash over the ways to distribute the advantages of higher education in a fair and just manner. Just below the surface of these policy debates lies a complex tangle of ideologies, histories, grievances, and emotions that interfere with a rational analysis of the issues involved. As never before, the need for empirical research on the significance of race in American society seems essential to solving the manifest problems of this highly politicized and emotionally charged aspect of American higher education.
The research evidence presented in this book has a direct relevance to those court cases that challenge race-conscious admission policies of colleges and universities. Though many questions still need to be addressed by future research, the empirical data collected to date makes it clear that affirmative action policies do work and are still very much needed in American higher education. This book also provides a framework for examining the evidence pertaining to issues of fairness, merit, and the benefits of diversity in an effort to assist courts and the public in organizing beliefs about race and opportunity.

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Compelling Interest

Examining the Evidence on Racial Dynamics in Colleges and Universities

By Mitchell J. Chang, Daria Witt, James Jones, Kenji Hakuta

STANFORD UNIVERSITY PRESS

Copyright © 2003 Board of Trustees of the Leland Stanford Junior University
All rights reserved.

ISBN: 978-0-8047-4035-7

Contents

Copyright Page, 
List of Tables, 
Table of Figures, 
CONTRIBUTORS, 
PREFACE, 
Chapter One - INTRODUCTION, 
Chapter Two - JUSTICE, EQUALITY OF EDUCATIONAL OPPORTUNITY, AND AFFIRMATIVE ACTION IN HIGHER EDUCATION, 
Chapter Three - STANDARDIZED TESTING AND EQUAL ACCESS: A TUTORIAL, 
Chapter Four - SOCIAL PSYCHOLOGICAL EVIDENCE ON RACE AND RACISM, 
Chapter Five - THE EDUCATIONAL BENEFITS OF DIVERSITY: EVIDENCE FROM MULTIPLE SECTORS, 
Chapter Six - AFFIRMATIVE ACTION PRACTICES IN A BROADER CONTEXT, 

CHAPTER 1

INTRODUCTION

Daria Witt, Mitchell J. Chang, and Kenji Hakuta

Next year will mark the fiftieth anniversary of the pioneering Supreme Court decision Brown v. the Board of Education of Topeka,Kansas, which reversed Plessy v. Ferguson and made racial segregation illegal. The lawyers arguing the case for Brown used social science evidence to disprove the many commonly held beliefs about race and racism that had been used to justify segregation. Now, nearly fifty years later, as success and prestige become increasingly associated with advanced degrees, and as the U.S. population grows more diverse, the debates surrounding the consideration of race in higher education admissions and hiring decisions are growing more contentious, and the courts of law and public opinion are once again struggling with issues in this area that social science evidence has the potential to address.

Many questions pervade public discussions and underlie current court cases and ballot initiatives: What would a fair admissions and hiring process look like? Are standardized tests such as the SAT the best way to measure academic worth and potential? For whom are they valid and in what conditions ? Who benefits from racially diverse campuses and in what ways? Should individual students all be judged by the same criteria regardless of group membership? Has the educational playing field been leveled for students of different races? Is affirmative action inherently discriminatory? To what extent does racism still exist? Does affirmative action compromise the quality of the student body? Will using only test scores and high school grades enable universities to admit enough students of color or do universities need to use alternate criteria to admit sufficient numbers? What should the role of colleges and universities be in helping to improve race relations in this country and to diversify future cadres of leaders? The research literature has much to say about these pressing questions, yet it has not received sufficient public, governmental, or legal attention. This book examines the potential of existing social science evidence to inform these very complex issues and questions in the hope of engendering more informed policies and public discourse about what has mostly been an ideologically driven topic.

Legal arguments for diversity and affirmative action are predicated on the notion that diversity (racial, ethnic, gender, and class) in higher education serves a compelling interest both to the institutions and to the society into which students will enter. Until recently, there was an assumption in much of higher education that the benefits of diversity are self-evident. Ample anecdotal evidence existed that convinced most educators of the validity of the claim. During the past few years, however, there have been many attacks on affirmative action and diversity programs in selective colleges and universities around the country. The passage of ballot initiatives in California and Washington state to end affirmative action, and court cases such as those against the University of Georgia, the University of Michigan, and the University of Texas law school have threatened the ability of higher education institutions to preserve the diversity of their student bodies. These challenges essentially question the judgments of educators about the best way to provide their students with a quality education. Although the judgments of educators may be disputable, an examination of existing research can help raise the level of discussion.

What does empirical research have to say about the educational effects of diversity? To answer this question, we conducted an extensive review of the social science literature. The research we uncovered, which we present in the following chapters, is closely aligned with the judgments of educators. In short, the evidence consistently demonstrates that a diverse student body adds value to the educational process and to institutions of higher learning when colleges and universities are committed to implementing and sustaining initiatives that promote the unique benefits that diversity provides.

Despite the general public's appearing to espouse the ideals and benefits of diversity (Ford Foundation press release, September 6, 1998), people often believe that affirmative action is not the best means for achieving a racially diverse campus and that any policy that takes race into account when apportioning opportunity inevitably harms members of racial groups who are not awarded preferences. For the most part, people acknowledge that slavery, legalized segregation, discrimination, and racism have hurt members of minority groups, particularly African Americans, in the past. A good portion of the public discourse, however, proceeds as if the Civil Rights movement brought an end to the harmful effects of policies and laws that existed for centuries and to discrimination and racism themselves. The popular belief seems to be that if they have not ended, it is time they did, but there is little that higher education can do to stamp them out completely; therefore, it is better for colleges and universities to proceed without accounting for racial differences (D'Souza 1991; Thernstrom and Thernstrom 1997).

Because of such interpretations, when it comes to determining how to allocate prized positions in highly selective institutions of higher education, "fairness" and "justice" are accepted at face value and not in relation to broader social circumstances. In other words, instead of understanding affirmative action as a policy that affords opportunity to students who have demonstrated merit despite the many obstacles that have arisen largely as the result of the historical vestiges of racism, it is understood as denying opportunity to more "qualified" individuals who happen to be white. The ways in which being white has afforded privileges to many individuals and generations of their family are not acknowledged. Indeed, this view of fairness ignores the very segregated nature of our society in which the majority of racial groups continue to lead almost completely separate existences and the different opportunities that those separate existences afford or deny (Hacker 1992; Massey and Denton 1993; Schuman et al. 1997).

This book takes the arguments concerning affirmative action in higher education and places them within the frame of reference that the last twenty years of social science research provides. It synthesizes the rapidly expanding, cumulative body of evidence on these issues in order to bring both contemporary and historical context into the discussions taking place in the courts and in public discourse. Although this book brings evidence to...

Details zur Ausgabe

• Verlag: Stanford University Press
• Erscheinungsdatum: 2003
• Sprache: Englisch
• ISBN 10: 0804740356
• ISBN 13: 9780804740357
• Einband: Taschenbuch
• Anzahl der Seiten: 246
• Herausgeber: Chang Mitchell J., Witt Daria, Jones James, Hakuta Kenji
• Kontakt zum Hersteller: Nicht verfügbar
• Verantwortliche Person: preigu; mail@preigu.de; ; Lengericher Landstr. 19; Osnabrück; 49078; Deutschland