Student Movements for Multiculturalism : Challenging the Curricular Color Line in Higher Education

by Yamane, David

• ISBN13: 9780801865886
• ISBN10: 0801865883
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2001-05-01
• Publisher: Johns Hopkins Univ Pr

Summary

Beginning with the premise that a comprehensive understanding of American life must confront the issue of race, sociologist David Yamane explores efforts by students and others to address racism and racial inequality -- to challenge the color line -- in higher education. By 1991, nearly half of all colleges and universities in the United States had established a multicultural general education requirement. Yamane examines how such requirements developed at the University of California at Berkeley and the University of Wisconsin at Madison during the late 1980s, when these two schools gained national attention in debates over the curriculum. Based on interviews, primary documents, and the existing literature on race and ethnic relations, education, cultural conflict, and the sociology of organizations, Student Movements for Multiculturalism makes an important contribution to our understanding of how curricular change occurs and concludes that multiculturalism represents an opening, not a closing, of the American mind.

Author Biography

David Yamane is an assistant professor of sociology at the University of Notre Dame.

Table of Contents

Preface and Acknowledgments	ix
Abbreviations	xv
There Is No Progress without Struggle: Multiculturalism, Student Movements, and Academic Innovation	1	(25)
Challenging the Curricular Color Line at UW-Madison	26	(21)
The Long March to American Cultures at UC-Berkeley	47	(29)
From Process to Product: Substantive Development and Implementation of the Requirements	76	(31)
Institutionalizing the Challenge: The Future of Curricular Multiculturalism	107	(20)
Conclusion Multiculturalism: Closing or Opening the American Mind?	127	(20)
Appendix A Methodological Notes	147	(9)
Appendix B Membership of Committees That Drafted Multicultural General Education Requirements at UW-Madison and UC-Berkeley	156	(3)
Appendix C Courses Satisfying Ethnic Studies Requirement at UW-Madison in First Year of Implementation	159	(3)
Appendix D Courses Satisfying American Cultures Requirement at UC-Berkeley in First Year of Implementation	162	(3)
Notes	165	(24)
Index	189