Racial Divisions

Helping Students Build Bridges Across
By Eleanor Lee Yates

 ANN ARBOR, Mich.

A University of Michigan-based research project is looking at the link between diversity and learning on campus, examining how associating with different ethnic peers affects students' social skills, cognitive thinking and attitudes on democracy. The project also will highlight college programs and activities that are successful in helping students of different ethnic backgrounds get to know each other.
In the near future, one of three Americans will be a member of an ethnic minority, says Sylvia Hurtado, associate professor of education at the University of Michigan and the principal investigator of the project, Preparing College Students for a Diverse Democracy. Hurtado says that colleges need to prepare all of their students for workplaces and communities that reflect the population.
"Our ultimate goal is to discover how diversity is part of our learning process. This will also help institutions learn how to build bridges across racial divisions, and will help students to become more effective leaders," Hurtado says. "Instead of replicating social divides, we'll learn how to link groups."
The 10 public universities participating in the project will administer baseline surveys to incoming freshmen this fall about issues on race and diversity. Over the next three years, students will respond to additional surveys, and researchers will monitor changes in their attitudes. Hurtado says the project will provide information about the kind of education that will be necessary for citizenship in a diverse society.
Before the national elections, students will be queried about their feelings on self-interest compared to public interest, their conceptions of democracy and their involvement in the formal democratic process.
The surveys also will reveal if students have positive or negatives views of conflict and whether students understand diversity issues.
"We want them be more astute, more skilled in negotiating differences," says
Hurtado.
Project officials also will study how undergraduates develop ties to communities through volunteer programs that offer opportunities to interact with people of various ethnicities. The project will survey students who tutor, help build houses and participate in other volunteer programs.
"Service learning gives students an opportunity to reflect on diversity issues, to develop values and maybe a different strategy," says Hurtado. "Students come to understand that all members of an ethnic group don't think and act alike."