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Description
Policy efforts in California have set a vision and expectation for community colleges to address a systemic problem—persisting racial disparities in educational outcomes and opportunities. To achieve equity—a social and economic imperative—community colleges have sought to adopt equity minded approaches to changing practitioner beliefs and redesigning existing structures to match the diversity of experiences of today’s community college students. This qualitative study explored the implementation of equity in eleven community colleges in California. Semistructured interviews with current equity coordinators at these campuses were conducted to examine challenges and opportunities for equity efforts from their perspective. While this study views equity as a shared responsibility of the entire institution, equity coordinators have a unique lens for the good, the bad, and the ugly about their institutions’ readiness to commit to a mission of equity. Transcripts from these eleven interviews were analyzed for major themes. The findings revealed institutional barriers and opportunities within six domains: (a) policies and practices, (b) attitudes and dispositions, (c) politics and power dynamics, (d) structure, (e) institutional culture, and (f) data practices. Adopting equity as a standard of practice in community colleges benefits racially minoritized students and society as a whole. Recommendations for policy and practice include embracing an equity minded approach to inquiry, planning, and implementation. Further, institutions must be willing to embrace innovation and perseverance as they work through the pains and discomforts of resistance to change and accountability.
