Challenging Racism in Higher Education: Promoting Justice - Softcover

Chesler, Mark

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0742524574 ISBN 13: 9780742524576

Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, 2005

Synopsis

Challenging Racism in Higher Education provides conceptual frames for understanding the historic and current state of intergroup relations and institutionalized racial (and other forms of) discrimination in the U.S. society and in our colleges and universities. Subtle and overt forms of privilege and discrimination on the basis of race, gender, socioeconomic class, sexual orientation, religion and physical ability are present on almost all campuses, and they seriously damage the potential for all students to learn well and for all faculty and administrators to teach and lead well. This book adopts an organizational level of analysis of these issues, integrating both micro and macro perspectives on organizational functioning and change. It concretizes these issues by presenting the voices and experiences of college students, faculty and administrators, and linking this material to research literature via interpretive analyses of people's experiences. Many examples of concrete and innovative programs are provided in the text that have been undertaken to challenge, ameliorate or reform such discrimination and approach more multicultural and equitable higher educational systems. This book is both analytic and practical in nature, and readers can use the conceptual frames, reports of informants' actual experiences, and examples of change efforts, to guide assessment and action programs on their own campuses.

About this title

About the Author:

Mark Chesler is Professor Emeritus of sociology at the University of Michigan. James E. Crowfoot is Professor and Dean Emeritus of Natural Resources & Environment at the University of Michigan. Amanda E. Lewis is Associate Professor of African-American Studies at the University of Illinois at Chicago.

Review:

Chesler ... and co-authors provide a conceptual framework for understanding institutionalized racism and other forms of social discrimination and privilege in academia and the larger society. They also present examples of a number of innovative programs aimed at addressing racism and creating more multicultural and equitable higher education systems. (Reference and Research Book News)

This book is a wonderful resource for academics, teachers, and administrators. ... Native American voices along with those of white people are included. This book recognizes that diversity and multicultural initiatives are not fruitful unless whites are also included within the scope of the terms and white privilege is examined. (Tribal College Journal)

This very well researched scholarly exploration of the historical and social contexts of racism in higher education explores inequality and raises significant questions about the sociocultural effects of cultural transmission and change on higher education organizations/institutions. ... Highly recommended. (CHOICE)

Overall, the authors do an excellent job of integrating conceptual frameworks, empirical findings, and program descriptions into a relatively comprehensive portrait of the need for and the ways by which to change America's colleges and universities into multicultural institutions. They recognize that the road to multiculturalism is fraught with pitfalls, traps, and immense challenges, but they also fully understand that the nation's welfare depends on how far colleges and universities move toward multiculturalism. All members of the academy, from regents to students, would benefit from a close reading of this book. (Planning For Higher Education)

A sensitive and moving depiction not only of the overt injustice of racism but of its apparent acceptance within the Ivory Tower. ... This book will be a useful tool for scholars and administrators who want to move their campuses toward more equitable and culturally diverse institutions of higher learning. (Electronic Magazine Of Multicultural Education)

Challenging Racism in Higher Education is a tremendously important work. It provides new and compelling evidence of institutional racism within higher education, as well as a valuable overview and detailed recommendations for systemic evaluation and transformation. This excellent and timely book will appeal to faculty and students in higher education and sociology programs; to administrators and other higher education officers; and to students of racism and oppression. (Maurianne Adams, University of Massachusetts, Amherst)

About this edition

• Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers
• Publication date: 2005
• ISBN 10: 0742524574
• ISBN 13: 9780742524576
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 352