"Can Student Body Diversity Foster Inter-ethnic Trust, Tolerance, and Patriotism? The Role of Friendship in Kenya"
Wednesday, April 27, 2022
12:00pm to 1:00pm Eastern Time Zone

A Ford Research Seminar with:

Jaimie Bleck
Kellogg Institute Faculty Fellow
Associate Professor of Political Science
Senior Research Advisor, the Ford Program in Human Development Studies and Solidarity

John Mugo
Executive Director of Zizi Afrique
Program Director for Ujana360

Danice Brown Guzman
Associate Director, Evidence Learning
Pulte Institute

Jackline Oluoch-Aridi
Director, Nairobi
Notre Dame International

Paper Title: "Can Student Body Diversity Foster Inter-ethnic Trust, Tolerance, and Patriotism? The Role of Friendship in Kenya".

Paper Authors: Jaimie Bleck, Bob Dowd, Danice Guzman, John Mugo, and Jackline Oluoch-Aridi

Abstract: This paper explores the impact of increased school body diversity on trust, tolerance, and national (vs. local) identity in Kenya.  It leverages a 2016 policy change in Kenya, which created 94 new national schools that had geographic diversity quotas for the student body.  In order to assess the impact of the policy, we surveyed 986 Form 4 students  in 10 new national schools and 10 other schools that were selected in order to mirror most characteristics of the national schools.  We confirm that new national schools in our sample are more ethnically diverse than other school types.  We find that students in these schools have more inter-ethnic and inter-religious friends. We do not find that students in new national schools are more tolerant, trusting, and prioritize national identity more than students in other schools.   However, we find that intergroup friendships  are associated with higher levels of tolerance of other ethnic and religious groups, higher levels of self-reported trust toward these groups, and a stronger sense of Kenyan identity.  Thus, national schools, when able to foster these intergroup friendships -can play a role in generating trust, tolerance, and national identification.


For more information:


The virtual link for the lecture will be emailed one day prior to the lecture
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