Learning to Speak, Learning to Listen

E. Chase Susan

Description

Over the past three decades, colleges and universities have committed to encouraging, embracing, and supporting diversity as a core principle of their mission. But how are goals for achieving and maintaining diversity actually met? What is the role of students in this mission? When a university is committed to diversity, what is campus culture like?In Learning to Speak, Learning to Listen, Susan E. Chase portrays how undergraduates at a predominantly white urban institution, which she calls "City University" (a pseudonym), learn to speak and listen to each other across social differences. Chase interviewed a wide range of students and conducted content analyses of the student newspaper, student government minutes, curricula, and website to document diversity debates at this university. Amid various controversies, she identifies a defining moment in the campus culture: a protest organized by students of color to highlight the university's failure to live up to its diversity commitments. Some white students dismissed the protest, some were hostile to it, and some fully engaged their peers of color.In a book that will be useful to students and educators on campuses undergoing diversity initiatives, Chase finds that both students' willingness to share personal stories about their diverse experiences and collaboration among student organizations, student affairs offices, and academic programs encourage speaking and listening across differences and help incorporate diversity as part of the overall mission of the university.

Sujets

• Sociologie, société et politique
• Sociology
• Multicultural education
• Higher education

Informations

• Publié par: Cornell University Press
• Date de parution: 15 mars 2011
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9780801460319
• Langue: English

Extrait

Learning to Speak, Learning to Listen

Learning to Speak, Learning to Listen

How Diversity Works on Campus

Susan E. Chase

Cornell University Press ithaca and london

Copyright ©2010

by Cornell University

All rights reserved. Except for brief quotations in a review, this book, or parts thereof, must not be reproduced in any form without permission in writing from the publisher. For information, address Cornell University Press, Sage House,512East State Street, Ithaca, New York14850.

First published2010by Cornell University Press First printing, Cornell Paperbacks,2010

Printed in the United States of America

Library of Congress CataloginginPublication Data

Chase, Susan E. Learning to speak, learning to listen : how diversity works on campus / Susan E. Chase. p. cm. Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN9780801449123(cloth : alk. paper) — ISBN9780801476211(pbk. : alk. paper) 1education—United States—Case studies.. Multicultural 2. Intercultural com munication—Study and teaching (Higher)—United States—Case studies.3. Minori ties—Study and teaching (Higher)—United States—Case studies.4. Discrimination in higher education—United States—Case studies.5. College students—United States—Attitudes—Case studies.6Higher—Social aspects—United. Education, States—Case studies.7States—Race relations—Study and teaching. United (Higher)—Case studies. I. Title.

LC1099.3.C488 2010 378.017—dc22

2010010964

Cornell University Press strives to use environmentally responsible suppliers and materials to the fullest extent possible in the publishing of its books. Such materials include vegetablebased, lowVOC inks and acidfree papers that are recycled, totally chlorinefree, or partly composed of nonwood fibers. For further information, visit our website at www.cornellpress.cornell.edu.

Cloth printing10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 Paperback printing10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

for BC, with gratitude

Contents

Preface Introduction Part I. City University’s Narrative Landscape 1Diversity at City University 2Conflicting Discourses 3Race in CU’s Narrative Landscape Part II. Students’ Personal Narratives 4Learning to Speak 5Learning to Listen Part III. Students’ Protest and Response 6Creating a Voice of Protest 7Walking on Eggshells (And Other Responses) 8Doing the Work of Allies Reflections Epilogue Appendixes A Note to People at CU BMethodological Issues C Interviewees and Interview Guides D Detailed Tables and Methods of Content Analysis Notes Selected References Index

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Preface

became interested in how college students understand diversity when I I began teaching sociology courses on race, class, gender, and sexual orien tation. Like many college professors, I found that teaching these courses can be difficult because they are about real life situations that evoke strong emo tions. Anger, defensiveness, confusion, frustration—and silence—can fill the classroom when diversity issues get addressed. I went to many faculty work shops—and organized some on my own campus—and learned about how to teach these courses. But I craved the opportunity to talk directly with stu dents. And I wanted to do so in a context that was not burdened by my role as a teacher. To me this meant talking with students at other universities. So, in the mid1990s I traveled to two universities to conduct intensive group and individual interviews with a wide range of undergraduates about how they learn and think about diversity. One, which I call City University, or CU, is a private university with fewer than three thousand undergraduates, less than20percent of whom are students of color. The other is a large pub lic institution with about the same percent of students of color. Although I purposely chose universities that differ from each other, I didn’t anticipate how significant their differing environments would be. At CU I found that di versity was “on the table” in a way it wasn’t at the large public university. At the latter, students’ talk about race, gender, and sexual orientation seemed to be shaped primarily by ideas they had grown up with rather than by ideas circulating at the university. In addition, some students simply were not in terested in diversity issues; they didn’t see them as part of their education. At CU the story was different. In both group and individual interviews all of the students had plenty to say, including heterosexual white men who were not involved in student organizations concerned with diversity. Thus I found that students’ talk about diversity was at least partially conditioned by what was going on (or not) on their respective campuses.

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