Are Required Courses the Best Way to Teach Diversity?

Increasingly, colleges and universities are adding required cultural competency and diversity courses to their curricula. In fact, 63% of institutions had a required diversity course or were planning to add one (Nelson Laird & Engberg, 2011, p. 118). These courses not only indicate that diversity is a primary part of many institutional missions, research shows that diversity courses combat stereotypes and improve student attitudes toward others (p. 119). However, a study by Thomas F. Nelson Laird and Mark E. Engberg suggests that sometimes students are learning cultural competency where administrators least expect it: in their other courses (p. 132).

Nelson Laird and Engberg measured the diversity related goals and outcomes of thousands of courses from a nationwide faculty survey (p. 124). Surprisingly, they found an equal number of “highly inclusive” non-required courses as the number of required diversity courses (p. 132). This means that when colleges assess the curriculum to determine which courses help students develop cultural competency, they may be missing the most inclusive courses. Unfortunately, they also found that the “highly inclusive non-required” courses are most often taught by women, faculty of color, and part-time faculty, presenting another barrier for curricular inclusivity (p. 132).

How can institutions better assess how inclusive their curriculum is?

• Because there may be highly inclusive courses across the institution, measure course outcomes rather than course titles or departments.

• Determine how courses become diversity requirements: what are the goals of these courses?

• Consider who teachers inclusive courses: are women, faculty of color, or part-time faculty doing all the work? In order to create a more inclusive curriculum, integrate diversity competency outcomes into a variety of courses, including those taught by tenured professors.

By focusing on course outcomes, college administrators can better understand what steps they need to take toward curricular inclusivity.

Zoey Slater is a student at Boston University pursuing a master’s in Educational Leadership and Policy Studies with a concentration in Higher Education Administration. Much of her research focuses on ways to make higher education more inclusive. She plans to use her master’s to work toward college access and student success.

References

Nelson Laird, T. F., & Engberg, M. E. (2011). Establishing differences between diversity requirements and other courses with varying degrees of diversity inclusivity. The

Journal of General Education, 60(2), 117–137.