Are we achieving the promise of diversity?

Education is really the foundation of democracy. This is nor a new idea. Benjamin Barber, in A Passion for Democracy, stares that it was Thomas Jefferson who most frequently argued that broad civic participation required education. Barber states, "It remained clear to Jefferson to the end of his life that a theory of democracy that is rooted in active participation and continuing consent by each generation of citizens demands a civic pedagogy rooted in the obligation to educate all who would be citizens.

Students educated in diverse institutions will be more motivated and better able to participate in an increasingly heterogeneous and complex society. In Democratic Education in an Age of Difference, Guarasci and associates concur, claiming that community and democratic citizenship are strengthened when undergraduates understand and experience social connections with those outside of their often prochial autobiographies -- when they can experience and reflect on the way their lives are necessarily shaped by others from different backgrounds and perspectives.

The connection between diversity and democracy is not self-evident, however. Current critics of multicultural education worry that multiculturalism and identities based on race, ethnicity, gender, class, and other categorizations are antithetical to the unity needed for democracy. Yet, the tension between unity and diversity, however politically charged it is in the contemporary United States, is not a new issue. Arlene Saxonhouse in her book, Fear of Diversity, describes how Plato and Aristotle dealt with the fear that differences bring on chaos and disunity.

It was Aristotle who was able to overcome the fear and welcome the diverse. Saxonhouse writes: "Aristotle embraces diversity as the others had not. The typologies that fill almost every page of Aristotle's Politics show him uniting and separating, finding underlying unity and significant differences. Aristotle advanced the political theory in which unity could be achieved through differences and contended that democracy based on such a unity would be more likely to thrive than one based on homogeneity. What makes democracy work, according to Aristotle, is equality among citizens who are peers."

What skills are necessary for individuals, or at least students, to be prepared for a diverse society? First of all, it is cognitive development--understanding complex thinking skills and developing them, as well as developing the disposition to become a critical thinker. There are also cognitive skills that ate linked with the kind of thinking needed for a diverse society.

One is "perspective taking," that is, the ability to see the world from someone else's perspective. Another skill or ability is a willingness to discuss complex social problems with others. Therefore, a second important aspect of skill development lies in the social interactions that are part of the learning process in exercising the ability to share perspectives, to discuss, and to respectfully disagree and/or change viewpoints. Finally, the democracy skills, which certainly all of this leads to, include developing a larger interest outside oneself--an interest in the public good. It is the ability to put one's own interests aside for a moment to consider issues for the public good, and, ultimately, civic engagement, broadly defined, that might also include racial engagement, or interaction with diverse peers on an equal status basis (much like the conditions envisioned by Gordon Allport in order to diminish racial prejudice in society).

The key research focus of much of my work is understanding the skills, dispositions, and values that are going to be necessary for a complex and diverse society. We are currently involved in developing the research and theory on how cognitive, social, and democratic skills are linked with intercultural engagement during the college years. Some of this research can be accessed at www.umich.edu/~divdemo.

SYLVIA HURTADO is director of the Center for the Study of Higher and Postsecondary Education and associate professor of education at the University of Michigan. Excerpts from a presentation at the 2002 AAC&U Annual Meeting