Project
Description
Higher
education plays a central role in ensuring that all graduates
are prepared to live and work in a society where one out of
three Americans will be a member of a racial/ethnic minority
and most of the growth in new jobs will require a college degree.
In order to prepare students to participate in a diverse democracy
and increase student engagement with diverse perspectives, colleges
have developed a wide range of initiatives that include such
practices as community service learning programs, facilitated
intergroup dialogues, and a variety of curricular initiatives.
However, we have yet to understand how students develop cognitive,
social, and democratic skills through campus initiatives and
informal interactions with diverse peers during college. One
of the primary objectives of this project is to understand the
link between diversity and learning on college campuses and
to extend the development of promising practices among participating
institutions. We aim to explore the following:
-How
colleges are creating diverse learning environments and are
actively preparing students to live and work in an increasingly
complex and diverse democracy;
-The
role of the diverse peer group in the acquisition of important
cognitive, social, and democratic outcomes both inside and outside
of classroom environments;
-Student
outcomes that can be best achieved through specific kinds of
initiatives designed to increase student engagement with diverse
perspectives.
Collaborative
research and programmatic activities will take place on eight
to ten large, public institutions with variation in their educational
practices and diversity of the student body. Different methods
will be used to collect information on cognitive, social cognitive
and democracy outcomes: a longitudinal survey of students, several
focused classroom-based studies, institutional records, and
student focus groups. Each campus will have a campus liaison
who will work with researchers at the University of Michigan
and will establish a campus team to ensure the success of the
project. It is expected that each campus will be able to utilize
student data in future planning activities and share promising
practices that may serve as a model for other institutions across
the country.
The
project is a significant attempt to bring empirical evidence
to inform the practice of educating a diverse student body.
It intends to move beyond the current affirmative action controversy
to provide action and discussion about the types of education
that will be necessary for citizenship in a diverse society
with a common destiny. Timed to coincide with the national elections,
we have a unique opportunity to learn about student orientations
regarding self-interest or public interest, their conceptions
of democracy, and engagement in formal democratic processes.
Institutions are searching for a new vision and are eager to
acquire research and theory that can guide practice. Therefore,
this project is important in revitalizing higher education's
mission to prepare a diverse student body for future democratic
citizenship and has the endorsement of the American Association
for Higher Education, the Association of American Colleges and
Universities, and the American Council on Education. It is funded
by the U.S. Department of Education, Office of Educational Research
and Improvement.