The Benefits of Diversity in Education for Democratic Citizenship

Abstract

The social science statement in Brown v. Board of Education (1954) stressed that desegregation would benefit both African American and White children. Eventually, it was recognized that integration, rather than mere desegregation, was important for benefits to be realized. A parallel argument is made in the legal cases concerning affirmative action in higher education: educational benefits of diversity depend on curricular and co‐curricular experience with diverse peers, not merely on their co‐existence in the same institution ( Gurin, P., 1999 , Gurin, Dey, Hurtado, & Gurin, 2002 ). Positive benefits of diversity were demonstrated in a study comparing students in a curricular diversity program with students in a matched control group (n = 174), and in a longitudinal survey of University of Michigan students (n = 1670) .