Changing Racial Prejudice Through Diversity Education

Journal of College Student Development, Mar/Apr 2005 by Hogan, David E, Mallott, Michael

The Modern Racism Scale (McConahay, 1986) was used to assess the impact of education and personality variables on college students' prejudicial attitudes toward African Americans. Prejudice was lower in students who completed a diversity course specifically addressing race and gender issues and in students who measured high in need for cognition (Cacioppo & Petty, 1982). A weak correlation between the prejudice scale and a social desirability scale (Crowne & Marlowe, 1960) suggested that students were not grossly underreporting their prejudicial beliefs. Diversity courses in higher education were effective in improving students' intergroup tolerance.

It is widely recognized among contemporary social scientists that racial prejudice is expressed more covertly in American society today than it was before the civil rights movement of the 1960s (Dovidio & Gaertner, 1999; Sears, 1988). Old-fashioned racism, which has diminished somewhat in prevalence during modern times, is characterized by blatantly expressed beliefs in the inherent inferiority of Blacks and by the endorsement of segregation practices. The concept of modern racism, in contrast to old fashioned racism, is distinguished by three core characteristics: denial that discrimination against African Americans is still a social problem; resentment about the social, educational, and political gains of minorities; and antagonism toward programs that promote social equality (Sears, 1988; Swim, Aikin, Hall, & Hunter, 1995). Individuals who endorse all or most of the beliefs of modern racism typically do not view themselves as prejudiced against African Americans because they do not necessarily endorse overt old-fashioned racism ideology. Nevertheless, their beliefs can have significant negative consequences for Blacks seeking political office, employment, or admission into college (Kinder & Sears, 1981; McConahay & Hough, 1976).

Because the population of the United States has increased steadily in diversity since the 1980s (Meacham, 1996), college administrators and teachers across the country have tried to prepare students for effective civic participation in the broader community by implementing multicultural curriculum requirements. In the year 2000, the Association of American Colleges and Universities reported that nearly 60% of over 500 schools had instituted some sort of multicultural curriculum requirement (Greens, 2000; Humphreys, 2000). The majority of universities (58%) required a single diversity course and 42% required two or more. Undergraduate students appear to be generally supportive of diversity requirements; indeed, a survey of students at Pennsylvania State University found that nearly 90% of participants in a sample of over 1,000 affirmed that they would have taken a course with diversity content even if it were not a general education requirement (Palmer, 2003). Multicultural courses are also required for teacher certification with the aim of imparting multicultural awareness, knowledge, and pedagogic skill in stimulating students to think critically about their own attitudes toward minorities (Banks, 1996, 1997; Evans, Torrey, & Newton, 1997; Keim, Waring, & Rau, 2001). With few exceptions, however, social scientists have conducted little evaluation and assessment research to determine whether diversity courses are achieving desirable effects. The present research was undertaken to supplement the extant literature concerned with the effects of completing a diversity course on prejudice reduction (Chang, 2001; 2002).

Multicultural courses can heighten awareness of students to social problems confronting minorities and promote a more open attitude toward them, but the benefits range from small to moderate and can diminish over time (Hill & Augoustinos, 2001; Smith, Roberts, & Smith, 1997). Chang (2002) used a modified version of the Modern Racism Scale (cf. McConahay, 1986) to compare students who were near completion of a multicultural course requirement with students who were just beginning one. His results showed that students who were nearly finished with the course had significantly lower prejudice scores than those just starting out. A limitation of his design, however, is that the comparison groups were assessed on the prejudice scale at different points in time during the academic year (e.g., the untreated group was assessed at the beginning of the semester and the treated group was assessed at the end of the semester), thus nonspecific events occurring between the two assessments, rather than the differential participation in a diversity course, could account for group differences in prejudice. Furthermore, because students who enroll in diversity courses relatively early during their tenure are possibly more tolerant than students who delay completing the requirement, differences in prejudice scores between the treated and untreated groups may have been influenced by the groups' preexisting differences in racial attitudes.

The present study examined whether completing a general education course requirement in race and gender issues reduces racial prejudice using methodology that corrected for limitations of prior research. Unlike prior studies that employed samples from residential campuses, we sampled students from a campus with limited residential facilities (i.e., the majority of participants were daily commuters). Commuter students present a special challenge for changing prejudicial attitudes toward minorities because they return daily to the social and physical environment where their original sentiments and beliefs were acquired and reinforced. Consequently, commuters may be resistant to the positive, but small changes that diversity courses normally produce. The primary quantitative comparisons of interest involved scores on the Modern Racism Scale of three instructional groups: a group that had completed a race and gender course before the semester of assessment, a group that had a race and gender course in progress, and a group that had neither completed a race and gender course nor had the course in progress. By comparing the groups on the modern racism subscales (denial, antagonism, and resentment), we could pinpoint which tenets change through instruction and which ones (if any) are resistant. Furthermore, because the design included a group that had completed the course during an earlier semester and a group that had it in progress, we could assess whether the benefits of completing the course persist over time. Finally, half of the students within each group (randomly selected) were measured on the prejudice scale (in addition to other scales described below) at the beginning of the semester of assessment and then again near the end of the semester. The remaining students within each group were assessed only at the end of the semester and provided a baseline for identifying pretest artifacts. If completing the course has a robust influence on reducing racial prejudice, then converging evidence should surface from both within subject and between group statistical comparisons.