The Right to Ethnic Studies in Higher Education
The Right to Ethnic Studies in Higher Education by Alvaro Huerta expounds on the struggles for ethnic studies in higher levels of education. The struggles date back to the late 1960s; students have played a key role in demanding and establishing ethnic studies in Universities and Colleges. Currently, there is a continuing debate in the State Legislature and higher education about whether or not to mandate ethnic studies for students. In case the bill is passed, students will learn to appreciate the diverse intellectual traditions and cultural terms activists, scholars and artists of colour and native people all over the United States. Why should colleges not allow students to learn about others’ histories, struggles and success in the United States, and what impact will it have on students?
What lies ahead? How did we get here? These answers to these questions lie in ethnic studies. Ethnic studies in Higher Education can make students feel socially valuable, personally justified. Students must feel accepted in any institution to succeed, and by implementing Ethnic studies having diverse authors in their teaching plan, they can become academically involved to participate and go beyond. Basing on the responses that have been received from students, they can respond well to a curriculum that is designed around their language and culture (Cabrera, 2019). Ethnic studies can be designed to increase students’ identification with their ethnic origin, and this can further increase their overall achievement. Studies have shown that students who hold a thin identity with their ethnic origin are associated with lower achievement.
With the current crisis in the world, such as COVID-19 pandemic, there is a clear and strong need for ethnic studies. These current issues are the everyday essentials of ethnic studies. They reflect all people as one nation, their complexity and divisions. Therefore, students require the right tool to disentangle the often disorganized reality that is surrounding them, and by keenly concentrating on these socially created categories that are lying at the heart of the American experience, they can understand how they actually got there.
According to Dunbar (2020), ethnic studies can be described as an agent of change. One factor that strongly differentiates ethnic studies from other academic disciplines is its commitment to social change. As a nature of students, they do not despair; they act! Feminism, The Civil Rights Movement and the current Black Lives Matter are just some of the social movements that are examined by the ethnic studies and are greatly supported by ethnic studies (Wells, 2020). Therefore, ethnic studies are more than any other academic discipline or a fixed set of skills but are a commitment to the life of justice that empowers the powerless and speaks for those who have been starved of their voice.
The Ethnic studies cannot just provide students with hindsight into the United States society and history. It can also help them pilot the present ones too. Therefore, by imparting strong researches, writing, and oral skills in the students, combining with a nuanced understanding of the complexities integral in the United States society, ethnic studies can effectively prepare them to become well-informed citizens and very competitive job seekers (Dunbar, 2020). The students will be positioned exclusively to move into a workplace that is more diverse than ever. They will be great individuals who have great answers, big team players who know exactly how to get along.
References
Cabrera, N. L. (2019). Ethnic Studies in an Age of Expansion: An Introduction.
Wells, A. S. (2020). Racial, Ethnic, and Cultural Diversity Across K–12 and Higher Education Sectors: Challenges and Opportunities for Cross-Sector Learning. Change: The Magazine of Higher Learning, 52(2), 56-61.
Dunbar, L. (2020). Remedying Educational Racism? Studying Ethnic Studies (Doctoral dissertation, University of Oregon).