PRESS-NEWS.org - Press Release Distribution
PRESS RELEASES DISTRIBUTION

Common approach to diversity in higher education reflects preferences of white Americans

Approach also aligns with better outcomes for white relative to black Americans

Common approach to diversity in higher education reflects preferences of white Americans
2021-04-12
(Press-News.org) PRINCETON, N.J.--Increasing diversity remains a key priority at universities, especially in the wake of mass demonstrations in support of racial equality in 2020 following the death of George Floyd. Many universities are guided by the motivation that diversity enhances student learning, a rationale supported by the U.S. Supreme Court.

This approach, however, is a view preferred by white and not Black Americans, and it also aligns with better relative outcomes for white Americans, according to a paper published by Princeton University researchers in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

Across eight studies including 1,200 participants, the researchers looked at two different approaches to diversity: an "instrumental rationale," which asserts that including minority perspectives provides educational benefits; and a "moral rationale," which, often invoking a legacy of racial inequality, argues that people from all backgrounds deserve access to a quality education.

They found that both university admissions staff and parents of Black students expected Black students to be less happy and healthy and -- to fare worse academically -- at universities that used an instrumental approach to diversity. Graduation rates for Black students were lower the more that universities took such an approach.

The findings suggest that universities seeking more racially equitable outcomes should consider the motivations shaping their approach to diversity. Schools aiming for inclusion of all students may need to embrace alternative or more nuanced reasons for valuing diversity, rather than solely championing the benefits diversity can provide. This could include a more justice-centered approach to diversity.

"Though there has been active debate about whether, how, and why to value diversity in institutions of higher education in this country for several decades, as far as we know our study is the first to quantify how different reasons for valuing diversity might differentially impact Black and white students," said lead author Jordan Starck, who is pursuing his Ph.D. in Psychology and Social Policy at Princeton University.

"Diversity and inclusion efforts seem to gain traction when they serve to advance majority group interests. Students, universities, and policymakers should consider cultivating a culture that values diversity for a more balanced mix of reasons," said Stacey Sinclair, professor of psychology and public affairs at the Princeton School of Public and International Affairs.

Sinclair and Starck conducted the study with Nicole Shelton, Stuart Professor of Psychology at Princeton.

In the first four studies, the researchers investigated whether the instrumental rationale -- a common approach by national universities -- lined up with the preferences of white and Black people.

Participants were asked to imagine themselves as university students and then read and react to multiple diversity statements. An instrumental statement conveyed, for example, that "diversity is about enriching students' intellectual experience and preparing them to excel," while a moral statement would say, "diversity is about justice and ensuring that people from different backgrounds have access to an excellent education."

In the next two studies, questionnaires were employed on physical college campuses as well as at college fairs. The first set of questionnaires targeted visiting families of first-year students or newly admitted students to campus. The second set was distributed to university personnel working at a college fair. Both were asked to read about two universities that employed either an instrumental or moral diversity rationale and predict student outcomes.

Next, the researchers visited 188 university websites (excluding historically Black colleges and universities) and coded diversity statements to determine whether they conveyed moral or instrumental rationales. The researchers paired this data with both the admissions officers' questionnaires and data related to students' graduation rates, which they compiled from several sources including the National Center for Education Statistics.

The first several studies revealed the most significant finding: The most common approach to diversity in higher education ironically reflects the preferences of, and advances the expected outcomes, of white Americans. Overall, white participants felt they would receive more educational value from, belong more at, and have their social identities threatened less at universities employing the instrumental approach. In contrast, Black participants preferred and felt they would be more successful at morally motivated universities.

This finding also held true in the questionnaire-related studies. White parents or caregivers felt their children would do better at an instrumentally motivated university over the morally motivated one, while Black parents or caregivers expected their children to be happier and healthier at morally motivated universities. Admissions officers also predicted that white prospective students would succeed at instrumentally focused schools, while Black students would fare better at universities employing a morally motivated approach to diversity.

When looking across university diversity statements, the researchers found that the instrumental approach was used more frequently. When linking this with graduation data, they saw that instrumental approaches also corresponded with worse graduation rates for Black students, especially when universities' use of moral rationales was low. A similar pattern was found among Hispanic students' graduation rates, as well.

The researchers highlighted a few caveats of the study. While the diversity statements correspond with institutional commitments to diversity, they are unlikely to be the key reason behind these disparate outcomes. They simply shape and reflect organizational cultures and norms. Institutional decision-making, interpersonal interactions, and individual behaviors and attitudes also play a role in these educational outcomes and preferences.

INFORMATION:

The paper, "How University Diversity Rationales Inform Student Preferences and Outcomes" first appeared online April 12 in PNAS. It is authored by Jordan G. Starck, Stacey Sinclair, and J. Nicole Shelton.


[Attachments] See images for this press release:
Common approach to diversity in higher education reflects preferences of white Americans

ELSE PRESS RELEASES FROM THIS DATE:

Study reveals cancer immunotherapy patients at most risk of life-threatening side effects

2021-04-12
BOSTON - Many patients with cancer receive immune checkpoint inhibitors that strengthen their immune response against tumor cells. While the medications can be life-saving, they can also cause potentially life-threatening side effects in internal organs. This double-edged sword makes it challenging for clinicians to decide who should be considered candidates for treatment. A new analysis led by researchers at Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH) indicates which patients are at elevated risk of side effects severe enough to require hospitalization. The findings are published in the END ...

Study reveals crucial details on skin-related side effects of cancer immune therapies

2021-04-12
BOSTON - Immune checkpoint inhibitors, which boost the immune system's response against tumor cells, have transformed treatment for many advanced cancers, but short-term clinical trials and small observational studies have linked the medications with various side effects, most commonly involving the skin. A more comprehensive, population-level analysis now provides a thorough look at the extent of these side effects and provides insights on which patients may be more likely to experience them. The research was led by investigators at Massachusetts General ...

Researchers identify surface protein as a new osteosarcoma therapeutic target for antibody-drug conjugates

Researchers identify surface protein as a new osteosarcoma therapeutic target for antibody-drug conjugates
2021-04-12
Abstract #LB008 HOUSTON -- A preclinical study led by researchers at The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center shows an antibody-drug conjugate (ADC) targeting surface protein MT1-MMP can act as a guided missile in eradicating osteosarcoma tumor cells without damaging normal tissues. This technology, using precision therapy targeting of cell-surface proteins through a Bicycle toxin conjugate (BTC), shows encouraging results for the treatment of osteosarcoma. Findings from the study were presented today by Yifei Wang, M.D., a postdoctoral fellow of Pediatrics Research, at the virtual ...

Differences in B cell responses to coronaviruses and other pathogens in children and adults

2021-04-12
Blood taken from a small group of children before the COVID-19 pandemic contains memory B cells that bind SARS-CoV-2 and weakly cross-react with other coronaviruses, a new study finds, while adult blood and tissue showed few such cells. "Further study of the role of cross-reactive memory B cell populations... will be important for ongoing improvement of vaccines to SARS-CoV-2, its viral variants, and other pathogens," the authors say. As the COVID-19 pandemic has continued, children have often exhibited faster viral clearance and lower viral antigen loads than adults; whether B cell repertoires against SARS-CoV-2 (and other pathogens) differ between children and ...

Bottom-up is the way forward for nitrogen reduction at institutions

Bottom-up is the way forward for nitrogen reduction at institutions
2021-04-12
WOODS HOLE, Mass. -- Nitrogen is an element basic for life -- plants need it, animals need it, it's in our DNA -- but when there's too much nitrogen in the environment, things can go haywire. On Cape Cod, excess nitrogen in estuaries and salt marshes can lead to algal blooms, fish kills, and degradation of the environment. In a study published in Environmental Research Letters, scientists at the Marine Biological Laboratory (MBL) Ecosystems Center examine ways to reduce the nitrogen footprint of smaller institutions, like the MBL, by focusing on a bottom-up approach. "This bottom-up approach is all about balancing the needs of various stakeholders to come up with the best, ...

Road salts and other human sources are threatening world's freshwater supplies

Road salts and other human sources are threatening worlds freshwater supplies
2021-04-12
When winter storms threaten to make travel dangerous, people often turn to salt, spreading it liberally over highways, streets and sidewalks to melt snow and ice. Road salt is an important tool for safety, because many thousands of people die or are injured every year due to weather related accidents. But a new study led by Sujay Kaushal of the University of Maryland warns that introducing salt into the environment--whether it's for de-icing roads, fertilizing farmland or other purposes--releases toxic chemical cocktails that create a serious and growing global threat to our freshwater supply and human health. Previous studies by Kaushal and his team showed that added salts in the environment can interact with soils and infrastructure to release a cocktail of metals, ...

Researchers engineer probiotic yeast to produce beta-carotene

2021-04-12
Researchers have genetically engineered a probiotic yeast to produce beta-carotene in the guts of laboratory mice. The advance demonstrates the utility of work the researchers have done to detail how a suite of genetic engineering tools can be used to modify the yeast. "There are clear advantages to being able to engineer probiotics so that they produce the desired molecules right where they are needed," says Nathan Crook, corresponding author of the study and an assistant professor of chemical and biomolecular engineering at North Carolina State University. "You're not just delivering drugs or nutrients; you are effectively manufacturing the drugs or nutrients on site." The study focused ...

Spanking may affect the brain development of a child

2021-04-12
Spanking may affect a child's brain development in similar ways to more severe forms of violence, according to a new study led by Harvard researchers. The research, published recently in the journal Child Development, builds on existing studies that show heightened activity in certain regions of the brains of children who experience abuse in response to threat cues. The group found that children who had been spanked had a greater neural response in multiple regions of the prefrontal cortex (PFC), including in regions that are part of the salience network. These areas of the brain respond to cues in the environment that tend ...

UConn researchers find bubbles speed up energy transfer

2021-04-12
Energy flows through a system of atoms or molecules by a series of processes such as transfers, emissions, or decay. You can visualize some of these details like passing a ball (the energy) to someone else (another particle), except the pass happens quicker than the blink of an eye, so fast that the details about the exchange are not well understood. Imagine the same exchange happening in a busy room, with others bumping into you and generally complicating and slowing the pass. Then, imagine how much faster the exchange would be if everyone stepped back and created a safe bubble for the pass to happen unhindered. An international collaboration of scientists, including UConn Professor of Physics Nora Berrah and post-doctoral researcher ...

Antidepressant use in pregnancy tied to affective disorders in offspring; no causal link

Antidepressant use in pregnancy tied to affective disorders in offspring; no causal link
2021-04-12
New York, NY - Major depressive disorder is highly prevalent, with one in five people experiencing an episode at some point in their life, and is almost twice as common in women than in men. Antidepressants are usually given as a first-line treatment, including during pregnancy, either to prevent the recurrence of depression, or as acute treatment in newly depressed patients. Antidepressant use during pregnancy is widespread and since antidepressants cross the placenta and the blood-brain barrier, concern exists about potential long-term effects of intrauterine antidepressant exposure in the unborn child. Using the Danish National Registers to follow more than 42,000 singleton babies born ...

LAST 30 PRESS RELEASES:

Does AI help or hurt human radiologists’ performance? It depends on the doctor

Scientists identify Achilles heel of lung cancer protein

Insulin affects the recycling of cellular power plants

Brown researchers develop brain-inspired wireless system to gather data from salt-sized sensors

New research highlights strong demand for data on personalized risk of preeclampsia

Toxic metal particles can be present in cannabis vapes even before the first use

Is food waste the key to sustainable, plastic-free diapers and sanitary pads?

Molecular crystal motors move like microbes when exposed to light

Conversations in an MR scanner provides a novel view of the brain’s language network

When words make you sick

Removal of incorrect penicillin allergy labels by non-specialist healthcare professional feasible

Is your partner’s disturbed sleep keeping you up at night? Letting go of unattainable dreams may keep you both happy in bed

Molecular orientation is key: shining new light on electron behavior using 2-photon photoemission spectroscopy

Continuous non-invasive glucose sensing on the horizon with the development of a new optical sensor.

Brain recordings in people before surgery reveal how all minds plan what to say prior to speaking

A KAIST-Seoul National University Hospital research team develops a computational workflow that predicts metabolites and metabolic pathways associated with somatic mutations in cancers

Bendable energy storage materials by cool science

Inorganic nitrate can help protect patients against kidney damage caused during coronary angiographic procedures

Active social lives help dementia patients, caregivers thrive

New technique measures psilocybin potency of mushrooms

UC Irvine-led research team discovers role of key enzymes that drive cancer mutations

All creatures great and small: Sequencing the blue whale and Etruscan shrew genomes

Sustainable solution for wastewater polluted by dyes used in many industries

Food companies’ sponsorship of children’s sports encourages children to buy their products, Canadian research suggests

USC receives $3.95 million CIRM grant for organoid resource center

New research finds boreal arctic wetlands are producing more methane over time

TLI Investigator Dr. Wei Yan named Editor-in-Chief of the Andrology Journal

New study reveals insights into COVID-19 antibody response durability

Climate change alters the hidden microbial food web in peatlands

Text nudges can increase uptake of COVID-19 boosters– if they play up a sense of ownership of the vaccine

[Press-News.org] Common approach to diversity in higher education reflects preferences of white Americans
Approach also aligns with better outcomes for white relative to black Americans