The authors examined the cultural adjustment experiences of 12 Kenyan, Nigerian, and Ghanaian international college students through semistructured interviews. Using consensual qualitative research methodology (C. E. Hill, B. J. Thompson, & E. N. Williams, 1997), 7 primary domains or themes related to these students' cultural adjustment experiences were identified, including (a) presojourn perceptions of the United States, (b) postsojourn perceptions of the United States, (c) cultural adjustment problems in the United States, (d) responses to prejudicial or discriminatory treatment, (e) family and friendship networks, (f) strategies for coping with cultural adjustment problems, and (g) openness to seeking counseling to address cultural adjustment problems. Implications of the findings are discussed.
Recent data indicate that a large proportion of students entering community colleges are identifying terminal certificate or occupational associate degrees instead of academic majors or transfer as their short-term goal. Despite this, throughout much of the 1980s and 1990s, states established articulation agreements as policy instruments to enhance the transfer of students from public 2-year institutions to 4-year institutions. This conundrum raises an interesting two-part question: In the absence of a significant increase in the demand for transfer by community colleges entrants, why have states enacted these agreements, and what potential impacts may arise from these legislative trends? Applying the state relative autonomy theory, we contend that the rise of articulation agreements constitutes a new state strategy to cope with the stagnation of higher education appropriations, the spiraling costs of tuition, and an excess demand for affordable higher education.
In exploring the relationship between cultural capital, symbolic violence and the diversification of the curriculum the notion of commoditization of race in higher education is developed. The term first and foremost emphasizes how students from ''disadvantaged'' racialized communities remain significantly under-represented at selective universities and colleges. Commoditization of race in higher education is also concerned with the potentially unequal terms of exchange between racialized communities, whose experiences and collective struggles are increasingly embodied in novels, poetry, non-fictional works, ethnographies, academic discourses, and programs of study, and the educational benefits associated with diversity at 4-year institutions accorded predominantly to white student bodies. In doing so, the paper demonstrates that race-based segregation initiated at the neighborhood and public school levels continues to inhibit racialized students from receiving quality higher education opportunities. Based on an analysis of the economic obstacles disproportionately affecting Black communities, the paper concludes by reiterating that unless selective universities and colleges are prepared to significantly enhance quality educational opportunities for students of color, even the most sincere expressions of support for affirmative action, multiculturalism and diversity will likely legitimate, rather than challenge, racial inequality in the foreseeable future.
This article examines the continuing gap between institutional practice and pedagogy, research and scholarship, and policy formation and analysis of equity and diversity in higher education. The article also provides brief summaries of the four major contributions of higher education scholars to this edition concerned with exploring different facets of, and approaches to, analyzing equity from a critical policy perspective. The article concludes with an impassioned call for researchers and scholars to become more insurgent and engaged in policy formation and analyses in an effort to not only inform but also to shape a sustainable equity agenda in higher education.
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