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Findings From Previous Studies of Diversity Requirements

  • A 1996 report issued by the National Association of Scholars found that 50% of the 50 top-ranked universities and liberal arts colleges (ranked by U.S. News and World Report as of Fall, 1989) had diversity requirements.
    National Association of Scholars, The Dissolution of General Education: 1914-1993 (Princeton: NAS, 1996)

  • A 1992 report by the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching found that between 1970 and 1985, the percentage of four-year colleges and universities with general education requirements for at least one course in international/global education increased from 4.5 to 14.6 percent; in third world studies from 2.9 to 7.9 percent; and in women's studies from zero to 1.6 percent. This study found that in 1990, 53 percent of four-year colleges and universities required students to take a course in Western civilization, 46 percent in world civilizations, and 20 percent in racial/ethnic content.
    Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching, "Signs of a Changing Curriculum," Change 24 (January/February 1992)

  • In a 1992 Change magazine article, Arthur Levine and Jeannette Cureton report that of 196 colleges and universities surveyed more than one-third had a multicultural general education requirement.
    Arthur Levine and Jeannette Cureton, "The Quiet Revolution: Eleven Facts About Multiculturalism and the Curriculum," Change 24 (January/February 1992)

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