The Quest For Equity In Higher Education

A critical examination of current sociopolitical issues surrounding equity and diversity and their impact on higher education.

In Chile during the last forty years, there have been important initiatives aimed at increasing equity in higher education, including the private provision of tertiary education starting in 1980, the growing support provided by the state to low-income students through financial aid, the increasing importance of institutional financial aid, a university admissions system that has made efforts to reduce the important weight standardized test scores have traditionally had in admissions decisions and institutional-level programs implemented to broadened the admission of low income students to selective institutions. This book seeks to describe the concurrent efforts undertaken both at the national and at the institutional level to increase equity in access to higher education and educational outcomes in Chile during the last four decades. Taking stock of the accomplishments of Chile´s higher education system is especially important at a time when social demands and political decisions seem to deeply question the road traveled.

Higher Education Administration for Social Justice and Equity empowers all administrators in higher education to engage in their work—to make decisions, hire, mentor, budget, create plans, and carry out other day-to-day operations—with a clear commitment to justice, sensitivity to power and privilege, and capacity to facilitate equitable outcomes. Grounding administration for social justice as a matter of daily work, this book translates abstract concepts and theory into the work of hiring, socialization, budgeting, and decision-making. Contributed chapters by renowned scholars and current practitioners examine the way higher education administration is organized, and will help readers both question existing structures and practices, and consider new and different ways of organizing campuses based on equity and social justice. Rich with case studies and pedagogical tools, this book connects theory to practice, and is an invaluable resource for current and aspiring administrators.

This book is the third in a four volume series that focuses on research-based teaching and learning practices that promote social justice and equity in higher education. In this volume, we focus on the application of the scholarship of teaching and learning in higher education outside of the classroom to maximize the effectiveness of student affairs programming. Specifically, authors focus on the application of SoTL in higher education outside of the classroom (e.g., faculty development, leadership, student involvement, student affairs) in ways that promote greater equity and inclusion in higher education. Each chapter includes a description of how higher education may traditionally marginalize students from underrepresented groups, outlines a research-based plan to improve student experiences, and provides a program or activity plan to implement the recommendations from each chapter.

An international group of scholars reflects on the challenges and prospects of diversity, difference and inclusion for universities in their respective societies. Various theoretical and empirical perspectives are used to better understand how diverse populations and expectations intersect to influence higher education and societies globally. Diversity and difference are defined broadly to encompass specific national contexts and their particular emphases on race, ethnicity, gender, culture, language, religion, sexual orientation and/or region. We find that around the world, higher and tertiary institutions confront the "diversity imperative" with varying approaches, success and "best practices." This volume identifies challenges and opportunities that diversity poses for higher education. It provides international comparisons of how diversity affects higher education and of the salience and impact of diversity in higher education.

This highly focused collection of papers, commissioned by the National Urban League, offers a candid and courageous portrait of black education in transition. This is a period, as the editors note in their opening remarks, that is characterized by a huge shift from federal responsibility for minority education to authority and autonomy being lodged at the local government level. Further, many institutions that once worked well, no longer do so. Many ambitious social programs and policies that originally promised much, have been abandoned, have failed, or just faded away. Pivotal to these times and changes is the question of the extent to which the American educational system has been, or still is, capable of being responsive to incorporating and even instigating equity and excellence for black Americans. This volume asks the hard questions: is the educational system geared up for the maintenance of anything other than mainstream values? can it adapt to minority youth requirements? when, why, and how do educational policies of majorities and minorities clash? How are priorities to be established on the basis of wealth or need? The legal statutes and administrative enforcement of equal educational opportunities are explored in depth and with a deep compassion for all parties involved.

This book provides a forensic and collective examination of pre-existing understandings of structural inequalities in Higher Education Institutions. Going beyond the current understandings of causal factors that promote inequality, the editors and contributors illuminate the dynamic interplay between historical events and discourse and more sophisticate and racialized acts of violence. In doing so, the book crystallises myriad contemporary manifestations of structural racism in higher education. Amidst an upsurge in racialized violence, civil unrest, and barriers to attainment, progression and success for students and staff of colour, doing equity and diversity for success in higher education has become both politically urgent and morally imperative. This book calls for a redistribution of power across intersectional and racial lines as a means of decentering whiteness and redressing structural inequalities in the academy. It is essential reading for scholars of sociology and education, as well as those interested in equality and social justice.