Broad Access or Minority-Serving? Exploring Racial Discourses in Postsecondary Education's Emerging Institutional Typologies

• In Event: 25.067 - Roundtable Session 7
  In Roundtable Session: 25.067-11 - Leadership as Fostering Diversity

Abstract

What is the relevance of race within organizational theories in postsecondary education? This paper offers an answer to this question by tracing the different effects of two emerging categorizations of postsecondary institutions within the United States: Broad Access Institutions (BAIs) and Minority Serving Institutions (MSIs). Drawing from critical race and organizational theories, we use policy discourse analysis (PDA) to analyze the extant published reports emerging from two national research centers focused on these institutional typologies. Unlike the usage of other units of analyses to parse out postsecondary institutions (e.g. private/public or four-year/two-year) which have become tacitly non-politicized, the use of BAIs and MSIs, we argue, remain politicized forms of distinguishing postsecondary institutions.

Authors

• Andrés Castro Samayoa, Boston College

• Marybeth Gasman, University of Pennsylvania