Identity, Power, and Legitimacy: Faculty Conceptions of Diversity in Higher Education

Abstract

Institutions have increasingly made the commitment to diversify higher education, and faculty play integral roles in creating an inclusive culture and learning environments. Our study asks: How do faculty conceptualize diversity in higher education, and how do these conceptions influence curriculum and instruction? Using phenomenography as the theoretical and methodological framework, we examined the qualitatively different ways in which faculty experience and understand diversity. These ways of understanding are organized into a phenomenographic outcome space with specific aspects that describe the phenomenon of diversity and variations within each aspect that distinguish the individual experiences. Data were collected through semi‐structured interviews with 30 faculty from two‐year and four‐year minority‐serving institutions. Transcripts were analyzed using grounded theory, and data were coded by two independent researchers to ensure reliability and analyzed by four researchers with diverse positionalities to support validity. Qualitative codes were constructed to capture how each participant described diversity. Five aspects were identified from our data: student features, legitimized membership, intelligence mindset, faculty role, and learning environment. Variations among experiences were organized into an outcome space with three distinct conceptions of diversity. In Conception I (which we termed essentialist), faculty attend to demographic features of students and view students with a fixed mindset of intelligence and as outsiders to higher education. This is aligned with equal treatments of all students and a curriculum approach that considers diversity as an impediment to learning. In Conception II (functionalist), faculty attend to different student viewpoints and consider students with a deficit mindset and as guests who transiently pass through higher education institutions. This is aligned with accommodations for student needs and a curriculum approach that supports struggling students. Conception III (existentialist) includes and expands on Conception II by attending to how lived experiences intersect with demographic features and viewpoints to shape the kinds of learners that individual students become in the classroom. Implicit power dynamics are considered, and students are viewed as rightfully present in higher education regardless of their backgrounds. Specific curriculum approaches are intentionally implemented to foster productive conversations around different student characteristics and to center social justice issues, and diversity enriches learning in the classroom. Overall, our results indicate that faculty acknowledge different student features and have varying understanding for what diversity means and why it is important in higher education, and some conceptions of diversity do not necessarily suggest an inclusive culture.