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Blogging our search - the Search begins | 5 comments (5 topical, 0 hidden)

[new] Diversity (none / 0) (#3)
by rtalbert on Fri Oct 17, 2008 at 06:48:34 AM PDT

For what it's worth, the actual empirical evidence on whether a diverse faculty helps under-represented groups (the "role model" argument) is mixed. The argument is that since women and ethnic minorities are under-represented in mathematics as a whole and in the undergraduate classroom specifically, their participation and achievement will improve if there are more women and ethnic minorities teaching them because they will have role models. But the data suggest that this doesn't matter so much -- the perception that women and ethnic minorities are in the minority among their mathematics peers does affect their performance, but having a more diverse faculty tends not to alleviate that perception in all cases. Here's the study, and it's pretty honest about what role model effects are present and which ones aren't. There could be some positive effect of having female professors but it's somewhat inconclusive.

Blogging our search - the Search begins | 5 comments (5 topical, 0 hidden)

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