Paper short abstract:

This study evaluates a U.S. public university anthropology course that aims to promote a culture of diversity. Drawing on experience teaching the course and archival research on its history, we report the tensions present among anthropological, university, and state actors.

Paper long abstract:

This paper explores how anthropological, university, and state politics are framed and reframed in a US public university course that is part of broader university curricula committed to teaching ideals of diversity to students who constitute an increasingly multicultural US environment. Approximately one thousand undergraduates now enroll each semester in the course in question, a course that fulfills the ethnic studies requirement (ESR), necessary for graduation. What tensions lie between ESR and fundamental anthropological commitments to effective pedagogy? How has the university mobilized this course as a method for responding to community, state, and national controversies regarding race and ethnicity? In what ways is this course useful and for whom? Drawing on personal experiences of teaching the course, archival research regarding the development of both the course and the ethnic studies requirement, and interviews with faculty members who have developed this course, we argue that this educational space is indicative of tensions between advocating for diversity within a nation-state context and fulfilling the anthropological objective of cross-cultural understanding while reaffirming the significance of anthropology as a field of inquiry. Following Marilyn Strathern in asking how audit culture affects pedagogy, this study examines the negotiations among diverse actors and educational framings that coalesce in a single course.