"Making a Difference": Residential Learning Community Students' Trajectories Toward Promoting Social Justice.

Abstract

Preparing students to create a more just society is an increasingly important challenge in higher education. The beginning of students’ undergraduate years is often a pivotal time of transition because they may encounter a vast array of curricular, co-curricular, and informal diversity experiences for the first time. This qualitative study utilizes a multiple case study approach to explore how one residential learning community, the Michigan Community Scholars Program (MCSP), provides intentional diversity experiences both within and outside of the classroom to first-year students. Students’ narratives indicated that their experiences in MCSP fostered a heightened sense of responsibility to “know” about their positionality in society, “care” about how societal inequities affect those from different social identity backgrounds, and “act” to create social change in their future lives and careers.

Five trajectories were identified based on students’ top reason for joining MCSP: the Location Scouts, Service Enthusiasts, Personal Connectors, Community Seekers, and Aspiring Change Agents. Students’ reasons for becoming a member of the learning community, along with their social identity backgrounds, diversity of pre-college communities, and prior social justice knowledge, influenced their engagement in MCSP diversity experiences. Students’ involvement in dialogic conversations within their classes, co-curricular activities, and residential hall were particularly influential in their acquisition of social justice outcomes.

Three sets of social justice outcomes emerged in the data: inward, outward, and forward. Students’ inward growth included acquiring awareness of societal inequities and demonstrating consciousness of their positionality (i.e., their privilege and power in society), along with educating themselves about social justice issues and reducing their own biases. Themes related their outward growth encompassed displaying cognitive (i.e., perspective-taking and intercultural openness), affective (i.e., empathetic understanding and “humanizing”), and behavioral empathy (i.e., gently engaging across differences), as well as educating others about social justice issues and “speaking out” against injustice. Their forward growth involved creating “small-scale” change in their everyday lives, and incorporating social justice into their future careers. Studying an RLC of this nature provides valuable insights about how postsecondary institutions can intentionally prepare students to become advocates and agents for social change from the moment that they arrive on campus.