Higher Education has witnessed Dramatic Changes over past 40 Years
Hartford, Conn. – The race and socio-economic class of students on college campuses still matter, but relations between the various groups have greatly improved over the past four decades, according to Elizabeth Aries, an Amherst professor of psychology who has won critical acclaim for her book, Race and Class Matters at an Elite College.
“For some [students], diversity is part of their agenda, and for others, it’s not,” said Aries, who gave an engrossing presentation during the Common Hour on Thursday, February 19.
Aries based her conclusions on interviews of 58 first-year students, who are members of the class of ’09 at Amherst College. The undergraduates were broken down into four groups: lower-income blacks; affluent blacks; lower-income whites; and affluent whites. She focused on the challenges that students in those groups face during their four years on campus and the benefits that are derived from having a racially and economically diverse campus population.
She said some of her findings were surprising – such as that most blacks just naturally assumed that all whites are affluent – and some of her findings were what one would naturally assume, such as lower-income students largely felt like outsiders at a college that, for years, was perceived to be “an all white preppy school for rich kids.”
One of the reasons that lower-income students felt like outsiders, Aries explained, was their observations that the more affluent students’ possessions – including items such as television sets, IPods and laptops – set them apart. The more affluent students also had enjoyed a richer “cultural capital” in that they tended to travel more and visit the theater, museums and other venues that the lower-income students could not avail themselves of.
Then there was the issue of “social capital,” a term she used to denote that the more affluent students arrived at Amherst already knowing other students because of previous associations at prep schools and summer camps.
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Elizabeth Aries, professor of
psychology at Amherst College. |
Another finding that was not particularly surprising was that black students, regardless of their income level, were much more focused on race and its implications than whites. In particular, they felt pressure to perform well academically or other black students wouldn’t be welcome. They also tended to feel as though they were the victims of stereotyping, even though many came from vastly different cultures and backgrounds.
At the beginning of the academic year, black students believed there were three possible solutions, though all were unacceptable. The first was to get angry, but that often put white students on the defensive. The second was to say nothing, which resulted in white students thinking that they had done nothing to offend the blacks. And the third solution was to educate the whites, but many blacks grew weary of that.
By the end of the academic year, Aries found that lower-income blacks felt good about themselves and they said they were fortunate to be receiving an Amherst education. “Class was not that salient on a daily basis,” Aries noted.
Overall, Aries remained optimistic about the future of race and socio-economic relations on campus, and also adamant about the need for Amherst to continue to recruit a diverse student population. She also said that the lessons at Amherst could probably be applied to many other colleges, including Trinity.