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Jenkins, Laura
- Associate Professor
- University of Cincinnati
- Department of Political Science
- USA
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Laura Dudley Jenkins is an Associate Professor in the Political Science Department at the University of Cincinnati, where she is also affiliated with the Asian Studies Program and Women’s Studies Department. Her research focuses on public policies to achieve social justice in stratified societies, including India and the United States.
Her book, Identity and Identification in India: Defining the Disadvantaged, is about the politics of affirmative action for lower castes, women and religious minorities. She has also published scholarly articles on official anthropology, legislative quotas for women, and comparative antidiscrimination law.
Prior to becoming a Fulbright New Century Scholar, her research has been supported by the Fulbright–Hays program, the United States Institute of Peace, the Charles Phelps Taft Research Center at the University of Cincinnati, and the Dartmouth Humanities Institute. She received her BA in government and music summa cum laude from Lawrence University and her MA and PhD in Political Science from the University of Wisconsin-Madison.
Select Publications
- Identity and Identification in India: Defining the Disadvantaged. London and New York: Routledge Curzon, 2003.
- “Race, Caste and Justice: Social Science Categories and Antidiscrimination Policies in India and the United States.” Connecticut Law Review 36, 3 (spring 2004) pp. 747-85.
- “Another ‘People of India’ Project: Colonial and National Anthropology,” Journal of Asian Studies 62, 4 (Nov. 2003). pp. 1143-1170.
- “Becoming Backward: Preferential Policies and Religious Minorities in India.” Commonwealth and Comparative Politics 39, 2 (July 2001) pp. 32-50.
- “Preferential Policies for Disadvantaged Ethnic Groups: Employment and Education” in Crawford Young, ed. Ethnic Diversity and Public Policy: A Comparative Inquiry. Macmillan Press, 1998.
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Affirmative Action in India: Access and Equity in Higher Education through Reservation Policies
India’s “reservation policies,” which reserve a quota of seats for lower caste applicants in colleges and universities, are one of the oldest and most far-reaching affirmative action policies in the world. In 2006, the Indian government expanded the scope of reservations to include almost all colleges and universities, proposed larger quotas, and broadened the eligible groups. Building on my 2003 book on reservation policies in India, I will research these new policy developments as one potential way to reshape “cultural and societal norms that affect access and equity” (NCS theme one). Imposing group-based policies reinforces some societal biases, yet such policies also can provide extraordinary opportunities for disadvantaged groups to challenge biases through educational achievement. The study of Indian affirmative action provides lessons for other diverse societies.
This research will offer one answer to a larger question that could be discussed comparatively at the New Century Scholar seminars: Can affirmative action or other group-based policies challenge societal norms that restrict opportunities in higher education? I hope to write a policy-relevant article with other New Century Scholars on the challenges of affirmative action in light of three global trends that are evident in India, namely, the growth of private, for-profit colleges, the increasing need for “shadow education” in the form of pre-admission coaching and ongoing tutoring, and the boom in distance learning programs. These trends have an impact on disadvantaged students’ admission rates, academic success, and opportunities to interact with more privileged students; thus, these policy considerations are key to my project on affirmative action’s ability to reshape social norms. |
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