Race, Ethnicity, Culture, and Global Higher Education: International Comparisons

• In Event: A Comparative Perspective of Racial/Ethnic Inequality and Higher Education as a Social Justice Force

Abstract

This paper focuses on how well universities in South Africa, England, and the United States are preparing students to work and live within racially and ethnically diverse societies. Students’ experiences are compared across the three national contexts to determine whether and how universities: (1) build bridges across diverse social groups, (2) provide student learning opportunities to interact with diverse communities, and (3) facilitate growth in students’ cognitive, social, civil, and democratic skills and value-orientations. While national studies examine how universities prepare students for an increasingly global society, little research examines these issues cross-nationally. Accordingly, the paper builds on the work of W.E.B. DuBois (1903) and his argument about the importance of the Color Line, further complicating his analysis by discussing how economic class, gender, language, and citizenship represent additional lines that empower the privileged over the oppressed (Glenn, 2002; Rodney, 1981; Winant, 2001; Takaki, 1978). Research also shows how educational, technological and informational disparities further demarcate the powerful and privileged from the oppressed in the 21st century world (Chomsky, 1999; Chua, 2004; Friedman, 2005). In the midst of such complexity, global universities are charged to prepare students to embrace, understand, and manage racial, ethnic, and cultural diversity against the backdrop of an intensely competitive, globally inter-connected economy. With this in mind, the primary objective of this paper is to identify the experiences and interactions most effective in preparing students for meaningful participation in diverse, global, free market economies. Findings will be discussed in terms of solutions tied to teaching, learning, and policy for global higher education.

Authors

• Walter R. Allen, University of California - Los Angeles

• Uma Madhure Jayakumar, University of San Francisco

• Shane Lachtman, Occidental College