2001 - Is Diversity a Compelling Educational Interest? Evidence from Louisville

Attribution: Kurlaender, Michal, & Yun, John T.
Researchers: John T. YunMichal Kurlaender
University Affiliation: UC Davis
Email: mkurlaender@ucdavis.edu
Research Question:
Evaluates how diversity affects the learning of White, Latino, and Asians students.
Published: 1
Journal Name or Institutional Affiliation: N/A
Journal Entry: Diversity Challenged: Evidence on the Impact of Affirmative Action, Chapter 5, pp 111-141
Year: 2001
Findings:
  • Both Black and White students attending high school in the Jefferson County School District in Louisville, Kentucky, report benefiting greatly from the diversity of their schools.
  • Diverse educational settings foster stronger learning experiences for all students and help to prepare them to live and work in a multiracial society.
  • Overall, students in the district report higher levels of segregation within classrooms than by school.
  • In general, students from all racial groups report about the same level of diversity in the curriculum, which suggests that different racial groups perceive the level and impact of curricular diversity in roughly the same way.
  • Teacher and school support toward higher education aspirations do have an impact, but this does not differ for Black and White students in Louisville.
  • Black students in Louisville indicate a stronger intention to live and work in multiracial settings than their white counterparts.
  • Blacks indicate higher levels of desire to live and work in diverse settings than white students. However, the impact of perceived curricular diversity on intention to live and work in diverse settings is greater for White students.
  • In Jefferson county schools there are high levels of diversity in both curricular and social interactions.
  • There is a high level of equality between races in the perceived educational opportunities for students.
  • A school’s diversity can have an effect on educational outcomes, specifically the outcome of willingness to live and work in diverse environments.
Keywords: AspirationsDemocracyDiversityRegions: SouthMethodologies: QuantitativeResearch Designs: SurveyAnalysis Methods: Regression Sampling Frame:High School Juniors
Sampling Types: RandomAnalysis Units: ClassroomSchoolStudentData Types: Quantitative
Data Description:
  • Data comes from a survey about student experiences with diversity in their schools and classrooms.
  • The principal instrument used is the Diversity Assessment Questionnaire (DAQ) which consists of a 70-item student questionnaire, developed by the Civils Right Project at Harvard University (CRP), in collaboration with the National School Boards Association’s Council of Urban Boards of Education.
  • 1,164 surveys from a representative sample of juniors.
  • DV: Higher education aspiration, comfort levels for living and working with members of other races
  • IV: Institutional student support and the perceived curricular diversity of the school, immigration status, gender, race, lack diversity,
Theoretical Framework:
Relevance:
Archives: K-12 Integration, Desegregation, and Segregation Abstracts