The future of our nation depends on schools being more racially diverse. // Photo Source: Huffington Post
The United States of America is a melting pot of various cultures that it’s interesting to see how the social landscape has evolved because of such diversity. In today’s schools, it’s not that remarkable to see Caucasian kids hanging out with students of Asian, Hispanic, or African-American backgrounds. It’s a situation that, in American schools of yore, would have been highly controversial, if not almost unthinkable. Even though the nation has come a long way from confronting the issues of slavery and civil rights, racism is still a rampant black cloud that lingers over American society despite the US having a biracial President with some African heritage.
In order to combat racial discrimination, kids need to be taught the importance of valuing and understanding people from various ethnic backgrounds. This is why racial diversity in schools should be viewed as a good thing for the young generation of today, and here are several other reasons why schools in the US should be more open to accepting students of color.
Change is inevitable
Babies are born every day, and more than half of the kids born in the United States are people of color. It is even projected that in the near future, the US won’t have any clear ethnic or racial majority. It’s important for schools to adapt to such changes because the kids of color they teach today may just be the future leaders of tomorrow.
Campus diversity benefits students
When they have a chance to get to know about each others’ culture, kids of different ethnic backgrounds are able to get a clear understanding of how to apply this newfound knowledge and enhance their social skills. Improving their interpersonal skills thus fosters innovation and collaboration while in school. There’s even research which says that an increase of racial diversity on campuses have positive effects on the students, such as improved academic performance to affirmative intergroup relations.
Education should be equal opportunity
In a survey conducted by the US Census Bureau back in 2009, only 28 percent of white Americans over the age of 25 managed to achieve a four-year college degree. Not so much with people of color: in the same survey, only 13 percent of Hispanics and 17 percent of African-Americans were able to get a four-year college degree. And with top companies believing that diversity is essential for business and growth, such as General Electric and Coca-Cola, colleges and universities should be more flexible when it comes to admitting people of color.
Russphillips 