The ethnic studies movement: The case of the University of Wisconsin Madison.

다국어 초록 (Multilingual Abstract)

This dissertation examines the origins of ethnic studies at the University of Wisconsin-Madison in the late 1960s and it addresses the central role played by Black students in developing the Department of Afro-American Studies. This thesis also reviews the history of ethnic studies and provides a synopsis of the ethnic studies struggle at San Francisco State College, which initiated the ethnic studies movement.
The ethnic studies movement is the struggle for educational reform that seeks to establish and advance the cause of ethnic studies in colleges and universities. While the roots of the ethnic studies movement are found in the various ethnic minority communities themselves, minority student activists initiated the movement for ethnic studies in predominantly white universities and colleges during the late 1960s. In an effort to organize the somewhat unwieldy history of ethnic studies, I suggest four distinct phases or periods of time for viewing the development of ethnic studies. The history of ethnic studies is explored through a discussion that examines the first two of the four phase—(1) the foundation phase, 1954 to 1967, which laid the groundwork for the emergence of the ethnic studies movement, and (2) the ethnic studies phase, 1968–1972, which saw the greatest degree of student activism and accounted for the establishment of the largest numbers of programs.
My investigation of the ethnic studies movement confirms the central role played by minority students in the development of ethnic studies. The minority power movements of the 1960s and 70s sparked the creation of the minority student movement and a widespread struggle to establish ethnic studies. At UW-Madison, Black students were inspired by the Black Power movement to create their own organizations and to struggle for the establishment of an Afro-American Studies department. Ethnic group identity and pride were strong motivations that led minority students at Madison and elsewhere to strive for ethnic studies programs that taught them about their histories and cultures.
An important factor that contributed to the emergence of the struggle for ethnic studies was the ideological conflicts that arose between the minority students attending predominantly white campuses and the “high risk” compensatory education programs established to recruit these students. Minority students were strongly influenced by the minority power principles, which stressed self-determination and separate or autonomous institutions. By contrast, the compensatory education programs that recruited minority students often promoted integration and assimilation. The case of UW-Madison, which in the late 1960s, experienced considerable conflict between Back student activists and the compensatory education program's director, suggests the possibility that compensatory education programs were an important site of struggle in the movement for ethnic studies.
Finally, my investigation suggests that faculty and administrators at Madison and campuses throughout the nation were willing to establish ethnic studies programs and departments, but that they sought to depoliticize these programs by eliminating aspects of the minority student demands for ethnic studies that were not in accord with traditional academic norms.