What We Know About Diversity in Education Abroad: State of the Research

The following text is excepted from:

Comp, D. (2007, May). What We Know About Diversity in Education Abroad: State of the Research. The Proceedings for the Colloquium on Diversity in Education Abroad: How to Change the Picture, 48-53. Colloquium organized and hosted by the Academy for Educational Development on May 2, 2006 in Washington, DC.

The best understanding on the state of diversity in education abroad can obtained by comparing the Institute of International Education (IIE) Open Doors summary that reports demographic data on U.S. students studying abroad to the data that the National Center for Educational Statistics (NCES) prepares on U.S. higher education enrollment. As evidenced by the longitudinal demographic data on the Open Doors website, the racial and ethnic makeup of U.S. students studying abroad has remained virtually unchanged percentage wise from 1993/94 to 2003/04. For example, the percentage rate of African-American students, as part of all racial and ethnic groups, during this time period increased only 0.6%. However, the actual total number of Asian-American, Hispanic-American, African-American, and multiracial students studying abroad during this same time period increased substantially. For example, the total number of African-American students studying abroad during the 1993/94 academic year was 2,136 and by the 2003/04 academic year African-American participation increased to 6,505 students. This represents a 67% increase in the total number of African-American students studying abroad during this eleven year period. Increase amongst themselves as a group is significant but, compared to other groups, more progress needs to be made.

There are three rather large disparities to point out in the demographic data between U.S. higher education enrollment and U.S. study abroad participation rates. In particular, the 16.6% positive difference between U.S. higher education enrollment and studying abroad for Caucasian students is the most striking. For all other racial and ethnic groups there is a negative difference between U.S. higher education enrollment and study abroad participation. The largest gaps are found in the Black/African-American and Hispanic/Latino-American student populations with 8.5% and 5.0% decreases respectively. The demographic data on the Benjamin A. Gilman International Scholarship provides some interesting insight. This table shows that without Gilman funding, even fewer numbers of minority students would study abroad.