College Environments, Diversity, and Student Learning

Abstract

The research literature on students in higher education is both rich and varied, even though the concerns addressed in this literature effectively resolve to three primary questions (Dey and Feldman, 1999): What sorts of people go to college, what experiences do they have at college, and what sorts of people do they become by the end of their college experience? To generate meaningful answers to these primary questions requires not only careful consideration of the attributes of students, but also of the educational environments that they encounter during their journey through the postsecondary education enterprise.