Final Reflection

My first semester of the Higher Education and Student Affairs master’s program is coming to a close. I believe taking the Diversity in Higher Education course at this starting point was an excellent choice, as I have been introduced to many issues and topics that are core tenets affecting higher education as a whole.

The topics in this course that have resonated with me the most are those surrounding the issue of student access to higher education, and how access is different depending on students’ social identities such as race and socioeconomic status. Additionally, the weekly group dialogue on race talk has left a lasting impression on me.

I found the readings that focused on access issues in higher education to be the most interesting of all the articles. Prior to this course, I already had awareness around the inequality of access to college that exists between white students and minority students, particularly those who are first-generation and undocumented. For the first time, however, these readings were able to provide me with studies and research reports around the trends, which have helped to make me become more informed. While the most detailed reading on this topic focused on undocumented Latino youth, it also begs the reader to reflect on how undocumented students who identify as another race or ethnicity might also experience higher education differently.

There are several structural barriers for undocumented Latino youth including parents’ low levels of educational attainment, negative tracking systems, subtractive schooling, and communities with low-performing schools and high crime rates. These barriers increase students’ chances of dropping out of high school, and is pronounced even more among first-generation students who often are not able to avail of many community or federal benefits that would otherwise help to disrupt their existing environments and enable them to advance and transition out of their situations, such as being able to pursue higher education (Abrego & Gonzales, 2010).

The race talk that unfolded each week among the class was something that resonated with me because I had very seldom been in a space that encouraged, facilitated, and honored topics that had always been deemed too controversial or taboo to discuss in my outside circles. I have reflected on the importance to engage in race talk and not shy away from it.

The denial of color is really a denial of differences. The denial of differences is really a denial of power and privilege. The denial of power and privilege is really a denial of personal benefits that accrue to Whites by virtue of racial inequities. The denial that they profit from racism is really a denial of responsibility for their racism. Lastly, the denial of racism is really a denial of the necessity to take action against racism (Sue, 2013).

There are other topics that were covered in the course that I would have hoped to spend more time dissecting, such as students with disabilities and transgender students.

In general, ableism is perhaps one of the more prevalent manifestations of social oppression. Through this course, I have been challenged to think about the ways I am complicit in social oppression. Able-bodiedness is something that I generally assume is the case for most people; to disrupt this, I opted to write about deaf and hard of hearing students for my literature review. However, more class dialogue on the experiences of students with disabilities within a higher education context is something I would have welcomed.

Transgenderism is another area that I still find challenging to fully grasp after this course. As a queer individual, I have experienced effects of homophobia and other realities that come along with being LGBT. However, despite being part of this community, I acknowledge that there is still much about gender identity that I need to study and explore in order to attain a better understanding of the experiences of trans people, as well as an understanding of how to better support them, both as a higher education professional and as a fellow queer person and ally.

Based on my participation in class, I have a better understanding on the topics of intersectionality and the cycle of socialization.

Intersectionality is a powerful tool for understanding, constructing, and deconstructing: the experience of identity, the complex and mutually constituting nature of social identities, the relationships between identity and larger social systems, and the interwoven nature of manifestations of social oppression (Wijeyesinghe & Jones, 2014).

Intersectionality is a concept that I had not given much reflection prior to this course, but it is a concept that I have actively been attempting to integrate in my life both personally and professionally. Social identities are not mutually exclusive, and the combination of these different identities coupled with a person’s environment have such weight on how a person experiences the world. Seeing all people as intersectional allows me to have more empathy.

The cycle of socialization is another topic that I have gained a better understanding of throughout the course. Deconstructing oppression by using the cycle of socialization model opened my eyes to understand how oppression is man-made. People are not inherently oppressive or oppressed; people are socialized into becoming oppressive or oppressed. This is why factors like a person’s environment and community, as well as the media consumed and information received by a person is so instrumental to this person’s social development.

I will make a more conscious effort to identify and incorporate these tools within my practice as a higher education administrator. The research and information I gained around disparate access to college based on social identities is key to my work in positioning all students (not just some students) for career success. I would like to further explore the privileges I possess and how my intersectionality might be able to inform and influence my ability to ensure all students are being provided with the most appropriate and helpful resources throughout college.