Untapped Potential: Ethnic Studies Programs in Community Colleges

• In Event: Critiques for Transformation: Reimagining Colleges and Communities for Social Justice

Abstract

Community colleges serve as critical access points to postsecondary education for racially and ethnically minoritized students, positioning them well for helping these students process the world around them, their place as minoritized citizens and residents of the United States, and hopefully (ideally) to promote healing and empowering educational experiences. The paper makes the argument for the importance of Ethnic Studies programs in community colleges and their potential for disrupting oppression in students’ lives. Ethnic Studies is a related field to multicultural education with somewhat parallel histories as education fields. While scant research has been done on Ethnic Studies in the community college sector, I argue that it offers potential for community colleges that has been so far unfilled—both in terms of a theoretical grounding for understanding pedagogically sound practices for teaching students from marginalized backgrounds and in supporting the community college mission in unique ways.

Aside from restating the point that community college curricular offerings should reflect the student body who enroll in these classes, I offer some other ways that Ethnic Studies may support community colleges and their students: First, community colleges in particular have faced long-standing criticism about their low graduation and transfer rates. Harbour and Smith (2016) discuss the impact the so-called Completion Agenda, or the increased pressure on community colleges to increase these rates. While correlation does not equal causation in all settings, much of the quantitative research on Ethnic Studies across educational settings (e.g., Cabrera et al., 2014; Dee & Penner, 2017; Sueyoshi and Sujitparapitaya, 2020) suggests that students who take Ethnic Studies courses stand to gain increased outcomes in soft skills (e.g, critical thinking, civic engagement, self-efficacy) as well as the metrics that are often used to judge colleges (e.g., graduation, standardized test scores). Story (2013) emphasizes how multicultural courses promote better community relations by demonstrating a particular commitment to a specific population. I would expand this to say that community colleges play a vital role in preparing community workers in a number of areas including healthcare, law enforcement, education (particularly early childhood education), and other parts of community infrastructure. Finally, research from K-12 settings suggests that Ethnic Studies improve student outcomes in important areas including academic literacies (de los Ríos et al., 2013) as well as self-efficacy and critical thinking (Dee & Penner, 2017). In the last ten years, Ethnic Studies received new energy and attention in both K-12 education and higher education. But in the present moment, such programs are also receiving increased scrutiny in places where they have the post to offer students of color. This paper is thus a call to action for researchers to advance understandings and advocacy for these programs via deeper student outcomes assessment.

Author

• Erin Doran, Iowa State University
  Presenting Author