Race for a Change in Continuing and Higher Education. The Cutting Edge Series.

Overview & Synopsis

Race and ethnicity can be forces for change. Increased attention to ethnicity issues in continuing and higher education in Great Britain would lead to changes in the structure and content of continuing education. Continuing education itself would then serve as a change agent across the university system by providing an antiracist model for other university departments. The beginnings of this trend toward continuing education departments serving as catalysts for change throughout the entire university system are evident in an analysis of the antiracist developments that have taken place since the 1988 University Council for Adult and Continuing Education (UCACE) survey of existing provisions for minority ethnic communities by university continuing education departments. The following issues must be taken into consideration in attempts to transform continuing and higher education into antiracist institutions: provision of better access for mature students, including blacks; improved access through antiracist outreach and recruitment; access and maintenance of academic standards; and the nature of an antiracist and lifelong continuing education system. (Appended are an annotated bibliography of 34 resources pertaining to antiracist work in continuing and higher education, UCACE recommendations for achieving antiracism, and an antiracist higher education questionnaire. The bibliography lists 110 references.) (MN)