Description
Book SynopsisIn 2005, Elizabeth Aries chronicled what 58 Amherst College freshmanBlack and white, affluent and lower-incomelearned from racial and class diversity. Her study emphasized the value of campus diversity at elite colleges. Four years later, Aries interviewed the same students about their diversity experiences as they graduated. Now, eight years later,she re-interviews her participants to see how and to what extent race and class continue to play a role as they move into adulthood.The Impact of College Diversitydetails howexposure to diversity in collegehelped shape Black andwhite graduates process issues of economic and racial privilege and inequalityat age 30.She investigates how college diversity experiences also facilitate the attainment of upward social mobility in lower-income students and the role that mobility played in their relationships with family and friends in their home communities. Aries further examines how interactions with peers of another race and class influenced deve
Trade Review"Aries builds on her decades-long commitment to the undergraduate experience to further understand college students’ experiences with race and class diversity within elite institutions. Using a unique, longitudinal research design that draws on students’ rich accounts of their lives at Amherst College and in the years after graduation, Aries argues that elite institutions can serve as engines of social mobility and indeed have the obligation to do so. The Impact of College Diversity
is a testament to the role that diversity and inclusion can play in deepening our understanding of self and other, promoting social mobility, and even enhancing productivity and innovation within society as a whole."—
Jenny Stuber, Professor of Sociology at the University of North Florida, and author of
Inside the College Gates: How Class and Culture Matter in Higher Education“The Impact of College Diversity
provides in-depth insights into how college students’ experiences with social class and racial diversity shape their perspectives and lives well after graduation. Interviews with dozens of graduates who hold divergent identities also illustrate how college experiences and long-term outcomes sometimes vary based on these young adults’ race, their socioeconomic upbringing, their current socioeconomic status, and the intersections among these. This book will prove useful for readers who care about diversity and equity in higher education.”—
Nicholas A. Bowman, Mary Louise Petersen Chair in Higher Education at the University of Iowa
