Affirmative action

Since independence in 1963, Kenya has pursued educational reforms intended to align schooling and training with its social, economic, and political development priorities. This study traces the evolution of these reforms from the Ominde Commission of 1964 to the introduction of the Competency-Based Curriculum (CBC) in 2017 and examines their relationship with national development. A qualitative document review was employed to analyze reform trajectories across primary, secondary, technical and vocational, university, and examination systems. The review also considered policies concerning free primary and secondary education, bursary and scholarship schemes, and gender affirmative action, focusing on their implications for access, equity, and educational quality. The findings indicate that successive reforms have consistently positioned education as a means of promoting national unity, preparing the workforce, and strengthening civic participation. These priorities reflect the role assigned to education in advancing social cohesion, economic productivity, and political development. However, the translation of policy commitments into practice has remained constrained by inadequate funding, limitations in teacher capacity, and insufficient infrastructure. These implementation gaps restrict the extent to which educational reforms can achieve their intended developmental outcomes. The analysis emphasizes the importance of examining policy design alongside the resources and institutional capacity required for implementation. Sustained investment in teacher preparation and professional development, educational infrastructure, and systematic monitoring is necessary to strengthen reform delivery. The study concludes that education can contribute more durably to national development when policy ambitions are supported by consistent investment and implementation capacity. Its historical and policy perspective provides a basis for policymakers and educational stakeholders to assess reform priorities and strengthen connections between educational change and Kenya’s development goals.

Ecuadorian higher education policy combines the constitutional recognition of education as a right with admission rules that allocate scarce quotas through academic background, evaluations, and affirmative action measures. The objective of this article is to determine under what conditions meritocratic admission fulfills a legitimate allocative function and under which it becomes a judgment about the intellectual value of the applicants. A conceptual analysis is employed: Jacques Rancière's concepts of explanatory order, dumbness, intellectual emancipation, and equality of intelligences are placed in dialogue with meritocracy research, with the current regulatory framework, and with the available evidence on unequal access in Ecuador. The analysis distinguishes three propositions that are often confused: that applicants differ in their demonstrated preparation, that institutions should assign limited quotas, and that the resulting ordering reveals unequal intelligences. Only the first two are necessary to admit; the third is an inference that the framework allows to be questioned. Four conditions are specified: semantic totalization, interpretative monopoly, temporal fixation, and public circulation of the verdict under which an assignative procedure becomes part of an explanatory order, and it is shown that they are separable from assignment and therefore institutionally modifiable. Five rights-oriented design principles are proposed, with their stated foundation. It is concluded that a defensible alternative is not selection without standards, but selection that limits the meaning attributed to its instruments and identifies testable directions for future empirical research.

Legal challenges to affirmative action in college admissions practices are on the rise, in the US and elsewhere. Defenders of the practice tend to point to affirmative action’s efficacy as a means of creating more equal societies, or to the political motivations of those who would stop it. This article takes a different approach. It argues that college admissions procedures are a cultural practice of adjudication, and as such share key attributes with other cultural practices of adjudication, such as sporting and musical competitions. The articles advocates for analogous thinking between these different adjudication sites as a way to understand affirmative action as fundamentally fair. It draws comparisons between affirmative action in college admissions and mechanisms for fair competition in two ‘serious leisure’ sites: crown green bowling competitions, and brass band contests. In so doing, the article argues that affirmative action is not a radical proposition, but one deeply embedded in everyday ideas about fairness.

چالش‌های حقوقی علیه اقدام مثبت در رویه‌های پذیرش دانشگاه‌ها در ایالات متحده و سایر کشورها رو به افزایش است. مدافعان این رویه معمولاً به اثربخشی اقدام مثبت به عنوان ابزاری برای ایجاد جوامع برابرتر یا انگیزه‌های سیاسی مخالفان آن اشاره می‌کنند. این مقاله رویکردی متفاوت اتخاذ می‌کند. استدلال می‌کند که رویه‌های پذیرش دانشگاهی یک کنش فرهنگی داوری هستند و از این رو ویژگی‌های کلیدی مشترکی با سایر کنش‌های فرهنگی داوری، مانند رقابت‌های ورزشی و موسیقیایی دارند. مقاله بر لزوم تفکر قیاسی میان این حوزه‌های مختلف داوری تأکید می‌کند تا اقدام مثبت را به عنوان امری اساساً عادلانه درک کند. این مقاله با مقایسه اقدام مثبت در پذیرش دانشگاهی و سازوکارهای رقابت منصفانه در دو حوزه «تفریح جدی» شامل مسابقات بولینگ کرون گرین و رقابت‌های گروه‌های موسیقی برنجی، استدلال می‌کند که اقدام مثبت نه یک پیشنهاد رادیکال، بلکه عمیقاً ریشه‌دار در ایده‌های روزمره درباره عدالت است.

ABSTRACT States vary significantly in both the amount of funding they allocate to community colleges and the mechanisms they use to distribute these funds (Kelchen et al., 2024; Mullin et al., 2015; State Higher Education Executive Officers, 2025). One major source of variation in state's approaches to funding community colleges is whether and how they incorporate race considerations in their funding models. For example, some states include weights for enrolling or graduating students with certain racial categorizations (Gándara et al., 2026). Including race‐based adjustments in funding models is one way to address the “education debt” owed to racially minoritized communities that has resulted from ideas, ideologies, and actions that have marginalized or otherwise harmed these communities (Ladson‐Billings, 2006, p. 5). Estela Bensimon (2007) developed the concept of equity mindedness to assess racialized assumptions about historically minoritized people . As Bensimon (2020), building on Ladson Billings (2006) and Kendi (2019), argues, addressing education debt requires anti‐racist policy, which includes naming race in policy. However, prior research documents legislators’ aversion to overtly addressing race in funding models for higher education institutions (Gándara, 2020), a reluctance that may be intensifying amid the current “anti‐DEI” climate (Briscoe et al., 2025; Lewis & Muñiz, 2024). In this context, this descriptive study addresses the questions: How do states incorporate race considerations in their funding models for community colleges? What patterns emerge in the consideration of race in funding models for community colleges in recent years? By assessing the extent to which state funding policies incorporate race‐related components, this study identifies both gaps and opportunities for addressing racialized inequities through community college finance policy. It provides examples for equity‐minded policymakers and advocates of what is missing from current funding models and what is possible in designing models that more directly advance racial equity.

چکیده: ایالت‌ها در میزان بودجه‌ای که به کالج‌های اجتماعی اختصاص می‌دهند و همچنین در سازوکارهایی که برای توزیع این منابع به کار می‌برند، تفاوت‌های قابل توجهی دارند (Kelchen و همکاران، 2024؛ Mullin و همکاران، 2015؛ State Higher Education Executive Officers، 2025). یکی از منابع اصلی تفاوت در رویکردهای ایالت‌ها به تأمین مالی کالج‌های اجتماعی، این است که آیا و چگونه ملاحظات نژادی را در مدل‌های تأمین مالی خود لحاظ می‌کنند. برای مثال، برخی ایالت‌ها برای ثبت‌نام یا فارغ‌التحصیلی دانشجویان با دسته‌بندی‌های نژادی خاص، ضرایبی را در نظر می‌گیرند (Gándara و همکاران، 2026). گنجاندن تعدیلات مبتنی بر نژاد در مدل‌های تأمین مالی، یکی از راه‌های پرداختن به «بدهی آموزشی» است که به جوامع نژادی به حاشیه رانده‌شده تعلق دارد و ناشی از ایده‌ها، ایدئولوژی‌ها و اقداماتی است که این جوامع را به حاشیه رانده یا به آن‌ها آسیب رسانده است (Ladson‐Billings، 2006، ص. 5). Estela Bensimon (2007) مفهوم ذهنیت عدالت‌محور را برای ارزیابی فرضیات نژادی درباره افراد تاریخی به حاشیه رانده‌شده توسعه داد. همان‌گونه که Bensimon (2020) با استناد به Ladson Billings (2006) و Kendi (2019) استدلال می‌کند، پرداختن به بدهی آموزشی مستلزم سیاست ضدنژادپرستانه است که شامل نام بردن از نژاد در سیاست می‌شود. با این حال، پژوهش‌های پیشین از بی‌میلی قانون‌گذاران به پرداختن آشکار به نژاد در مدل‌های تأمین مالی مؤسسات آموزش عالی حکایت دارد (Gándara، 2020)، بی‌میلی‌ای که ممکن است در فضای کنونی «ضد-DEI» تشدید شده باشد (Briscoe و همکاران، 2025؛ Lewis و Muñiz، 2024). در این زمینه، این مطالعه توصیفی به این پرسش‌ها می‌پردازد: ایالت‌ها چگونه ملاحظات نژادی را در مدل‌های تأمین مالی کالج‌های اجتماعی خود لحاظ می‌کنند؟ چه الگوهایی در سال‌های اخیر در توجه به نژاد در مدل‌های تأمین مالی کالج‌های اجتماعی مشاهده می‌شود؟ با ارزیابی میزان گنجاندن مؤلفه‌های مرتبط با نژاد در سیاست‌های تأمین مالی ایالتی، این مطالعه شکاف‌ها و فرصت‌های موجود برای پرداختن به نابرابری‌های نژادی از طریق سیاست مالی کالج‌های اجتماعی را شناسایی می‌کند. این پژوهش نمونه‌هایی را برای سیاست‌گذاران و کنشگران عدالت‌محور ارائه می‌دهد تا آنچه در مدل‌های فعلی تأمین مالی غایب است و آنچه در طراحی مدل‌هایی که به طور مستقیم‌تر عدالت نژادی را پیش می‌برند، ممکن است، مشخص شود.