Can Student Body Diversity Foster Inter-ethnic Trust, Tolerance, and Patriotism? The Role of Friendship in Kenya (HYBRID)

REGISTER

A paper presented by co-authors:

• Jaimie Bleck
  Associate Professor of Political Science
  Senior Research Advisor, the Ford Program in Human Development Studies and Solidarity
  Kellogg Institute Faculty Fellow
• Danice Brown Guzman
  Associate Director, Evidence Learning
  Pulte Institute
• John Mugo
  Executive Director of Zizi Afrique
  Program Director for Ujana360
• Jackline Oluoch-Aridi
  Director, Nairobi
  Notre Dame International

Not presenting: co-author Rev. Robert Dowd, CSC, Vice President and Associate Provost

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.