Diversity and Inclusion: The Effect of a School’s Emphasis on Diversity on Feelings of Belonging and Inclusion Among Ethnic and Racial Minority Students

Abstract

The present study seeks to understand how the emphasis or value a school places on diversity, operationalized as whether a school mentions one of 16 diversity-related key terms in its mission statement, influences important outcomes for ethnic and racial minority students. To investigate this research question, we coded the mission statements of New York City public high schools for the mention of diversity-related words and looked at how the mention, or lack thereof, of these diversity-related words affected ethnic and racial minority students’ feelings of belonging and inclusion and reports of the prevalence of diversity-based bullying and harassment at school, which were captured on the New York City Department of Education 2018 Student School Survey. Contrary to our predictions, the results showed that the emphasis a school places on diversity, measured by whether they mention a diversity key term in their mission statement, did not significantly affect ethnic and racial minority students’ sense of belonging and inclusion and reports of diversity-based bullying and harassment at school.