ABSTRACT

Recent years have brought an increasing amount of attention to the educational experiences and outcomes for men of color. As a group, these students experience some of the lowest rates of success in community college. These inequities in education start early, fueled by racial/gender dynamics, stereotyping, and growing up in under-resourced communities. With these known barriers facing men of color, there are few policy initiatives developed explicitly to address these students. More generally, states have passed reforms to improve completion and attainment that may support men of color. This paper examines California’s Student Equity Policy (SEP), an initiative seeking to mitigate equity gaps in community college, to see if and how implementation benefits men of color in community college. The policy required community colleges to assess inequities by race and gender as well as other demographics to identify gaps in success then develop a student equity plan with goals and solutions to mitigate them. Through critical policy analysis, the authors document the opportunities in these equity plans to address men of color by examining 42 community colleges in the state. Although men of color were identified 33% of the time as facing inequity, we found only 6% of activities in these plans explicitly addressed them. Based on these results we provide promising practices that offer ways to support men of color in community college and conclude with recommendations to better utilize policy as a tool to improve the equity gaps for these students.

摘要

近年来，人们越来越关注有色人种的教育经历和成果。作为一个群体，这些学生在社区大学的成功率最低。受种族/性别动态、陈规定型观念和在资源贫乏社区中成长的推动，教育中的这些不平等现象很早就开始了。由于有色人种面临这些已知的障碍，很少有政策举措明确针对这些学生制定。更一般地说，各州已经通过了改革，以提高可能支持有色人种的完成度和成就。本文研究了加州的学生平等政策 (SEP)，这是一项旨在缩小社区大学公平差距的倡议，以了解实施是否以及如何使社区大学的有色人种受益。学生权益计划，包括目标和解决方案，以减轻它们。通过批判性政策分析，作者通过检查该州的 42 所社区学院，记录了这些公平计划中解决有色人种问题的机会。尽管 33% 的有色人种被确定为面临不平等，但我们发现这些计划中只有 6% 的活动明确解决了这些问题。基于这些结果，我们提供了有希望的实践，这些实践提供了支持社区大学有色人种的方法，并提出了更好地利用政策作为改善这些学生公平差距的工具的建议。