Thursday, August 09, 2018

Does Taking Ethnic Studies Courses Improve Student Performance?

2 Comments:

Anonymous Anonymous said...

I only skimmed the article, but this seems like a weird way to frame the debate. Is the merit of a college course really dependent on whether it improves "performance"? Being a more well rounded person, say, seems like a positive potential outcome, yet it's hard to imagine being able to quantify that such that it would register as improved "performance." I think the ethnic studies thing is easy to overdo, but gauging the worth of a course based on boosts in "performance" seems pernicious in its own right.

9:35 AM  
Blogger Winston Smith said...

Yup. I'm with ya.

In general, I think people say such things because they've lost faith in the idea of intrinsic value, including the intrinsic value of learning. They think that, in order to be valuable, they have to be means to a more practical end.

I'm sure ethnic studies classes don't have the effect claimed for them. As to whether they're intrinsically valuable... Well, I'd guess they can be, in some scaled-back and intellectually-rehabilitated form.

11:59 AM  

Post a Comment

Subscribe to Post Comments [Atom]

<< Home