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ERIC Number: EJ1396886
Record Type: Journal
Publication Date: 2023
Pages: 26
Abstractor: As Provided
ISBN: N/A
ISSN: ISSN-1559-0151
EISSN: N/A
Diversity in Honors: Understanding Systemic Biases through Student Narratives
Singla, Aman; Melendrez, Minerva; Thai, Mable T.; Mann, Sukhdev S.; Zhong, Denise; Hoang, Kim T.; Lee, Isabella H.; Aponte, Andrea V.
Journal of the National Collegiate Honors Council, v24 n1 p57-80 2023
Centered on superiority over a certain group or individual, discrimination becomes predominant in prestigious institutions that pride themselves on exclusivity. Collegiate honors programs tend to deepen this practice by creating highly elite spaces accessible only to a select few. This rigidity can lead to an underrepresentation of historically marginalized groups, students who often lack the necessary resources for achieving academic excellence. This case study examines the ways honors programs inadvertently perpetuate discrimination among different social identities. Using inductive interviewing of honors students (n = 12) to gauge individual perceptions of program diversity, researchers rely on content analysis to generate four themes (relationship, discrimination, exclusion, conformity). By cross-analyzing participant responses with social identities, key programmatic components that may have led to covert systemic bias are uncovered. Results further indicate a possible link between a student's racial identity and their sense of belonging within the program, with people of color reporting more instances of "othering" and discrimination. This study reveals a pressing need for increasing access to honors for minority students and improving the level of integration and retention among students currently enrolled.
National Collegiate Honors Council. 1100 Neihardt Residence Center, University of Nebraska-Lincoln, 540 North 16th Street, Lincoln, NE 68588. Tel: 402-472-9150; Fax: 402-472-9152; e-mail: nchc@unl.edu; Web site: http://nchchonors.org
Publication Type: Journal Articles; Reports - Research
Education Level: Higher Education; Postsecondary Education
Audience: N/A
Language: English
Sponsor: N/A
Authoring Institution: N/A
Identifiers - Location: California
Grant or Contract Numbers: N/A