Student Diversity and the Culture of Higher Education

Abstract

Despite the tremendous growth of participation in higher education over the last century, for some groups colleges and universities have been highly resistent to change. This article considers the idea of cultural access, one of the five types of access in a model that Carol Aslanian developed, as a source of remaining barriers. Using this concept, it draws on the experience of Jane Addams and the Hull House College Extension Program to look at differences between the culture of the university and the culture of the working‐class neighborhood. Noting a recent pilot program to bridge such cultural differences, along with changes in academia emerging mainly from feminist and post‐modern thought, it invites readers to discuss whether the concept of cultural access and the current changes in the university can help us deal with some of the limits to access that still exist.

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