- Benefits of Ethnic Studies
- Expands curriculum that too often neglects the rich history of underrepresented groups
- Helps students better connect to historical events and understand the struggles of others as well as their their own
- Teaches critical thinking strategies to students
- Has a positive impact on academic engagement, test scores, graduation rates, and career success
- “Assignment to this course increased ninth-grade attendance by 21 percentage points, GPA by 1.4 grade points, and credits earned by 23” (Stanford study)
- Ethnic studies majors in general graduate at approximately 20 percent higher rates than non-ethnic studies majors (San Francisco State University study)
- Students who enrolled at least one ethnic studies class graduated at a higher rate than students who took no ethnic studies classes (San Francisco State University study)
- Promotes social-emotional learning and connects students with their own community and other communities
- Makes students of color feel seen and less alienated
- Ethnic studies courses dispel myths and build connections among students
- “The overwhelming and most consistent finding is that ethnic studies courses have a positive impact on students’ development of democracy outcomes” (Sleeter 17-18)
- “Participation in diversity experiences is ‘significantly and positively related to cognitive development’” (Sleeter 19)
- Mexican American Studies courses were related to improved academic achievement for students: participation in the program was significantly related to an increased likelihood of standardized test passage and high school graduation (Cabrera, et al., 2014)
- Participating in MAS increased the probability of graduation by 9.5% for the sample of all cohorts combined (1102)
- For students who initially failed the AIMS reading test, participating in MAS increased the probability of subsequently passing the AIMS reading test by 9.3% for all cohorts (1102)
