Supporting Undergraduates’ Engaged Learning About Privilege and Equity: Examining Access and Stratification in Public Schools

Across the nation, college campuses are working to increase the diversity of their student population as well as the diversity of the undergraduate curriculum so that students engage with issues of race, ethnicity, and other forms of diversity. Both of these shifts—increasing diversity in the student population and course offerings—are meant to support students in gaining diverse perspectives, critical thinking skills, and a more nuanced understanding of their world. Although this increased focus on issues of diversity is critical to a liberal arts education, scholars argue that there is a difference between “mere contact and actual interaction between students of different racial backgrounds” (Pettigrew, 1988). This project is directly responsive to this problem space. Alston and Goldin investigate how instructors can both design and teach undergraduate courses about issues of race, ethnicity, and diversity so that students engage with each other and the content in substantive ways.